


hop(p)ing for you

by thathockey



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Animal Transformation, Canon Compliant, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Miscommunication, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27632962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thathockey/pseuds/thathockey
Summary: In neat black font the message says,Patrick will find his way back to his unerring form when all is right.
Relationships: Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews
Comments: 8
Kudos: 62





	hop(p)ing for you

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 32nd birthday, Kaner! This is my gift for you: a fic in which you get magically transformed into the most adorable little bunny! I hope you never read it <3
> 
> This was supposed to be a short and silly story, and I wanted it to be posted in time for Halloween, although this isn't spooky in the slightest and it wouldn't have fit the vibe. Now, almost 30k later, it's finally here. 
> 
> I hope at least one person enjoys the fic, and ignore all the typos and mistakes you're going to find, especially in the last scene. I panic-wrote it today because I truly wanted this to be up for Pat's birthday. 
> 
> Happy reading, y'all.

Hockey is the weirdest fucking sport ever, this is just an objective fact. 

It has nothing to do with its rules, however. It’s also not about the way it’s played, or the gear it’s used, or the rinks where it happens, or the way players love it like they love few other things in their lives. Those are all understandable attributes, parts of a game that Jonny has been playing for so long it’s become an intrinsic part of him. 

Hockey is the weirdest fucking sport in the world because something like your teammate transforming into a little, furry prairie animal is, apparently, not weird at all. 

“What the fuck do you mean it’s normal?” Jonny barks at the phone he’s got tightly pressed to his right ear. 

A soft breeze blows into the inside of Patrick’s house through the open front door, sending a shiver down Jonny’s spine. He’s wearing a light jacket, but Chicago’s always closer to winter than fall by this time of year, and although Jonny has been living in this city for well over a decade it never ceases to take him by surprise. 

Cold air sneaks its way past Jonny again, seeping into his bones and making a home there. Jonny spares a quick thought to turning around and closing the door to prevent it from happening once more, but he can’t fathom moving or taking his eyes away from what is right in front of him. 

He won’t blink, won’t breathe, until things start making a little more sense. 

“I mean it’s normal, dude,” Sharpy reiterates on the other end of the phone line. “It’s happened before, I’ve seen it…”

Sharpy keeps blabbering on in Jonny’s ear, something about Tyler Seguin turning into a puppy when he was with the Stars, and something about there being rumors someone on the Flyers turned into a raccoon once, but Jonny is paying him zero mind. 

His attention is completely stolen by the creature in front of him and the way it sneezes, once, twice, its little body bouncing lightly with the force of its sneeze.

The little creature’s eyes widen, as if its own sneezes frightened it. Jonny’s fingers tighten on his phone as he watches the creature’s ears twitch. 

“So yeah, it’s not that weird that Kaner turned into a rabbit, basically,” Sharpy concludes his speech, and the creature’s head tilts to the side as its ears face forward, like hearing the name _Kaner_ triggered the response.

“This… This—” Jonny has to pause his words twice, his brain a mess of convoluted thoughts that he’s finding impossible to sort out. “This is really Patrick? Like, for real.”

“Yes, Jonathan,” Sharpy confirms once more, a sigh showing his exasperation at Jonny’s unwillingness to readily accept that his best friend has turned into a tiny, white and brown, fluffy bunny with the longest ears Jonny’s ever seen on such a small animal. “Isn’t that what the message said? Why are you doubting it so much?”

The message Sharpy is referring to still stands in front of Jonny, as does the bunny. It’s written in a plain white cardboard that’s placed on an easel perfectly facing the front door, making it the first thing Jonny saw when he used his spare key to open Pat’s house. 

In neat black font the message says, _Patrick will find his way back to his unerring form when all is right._

Jonny’s first response upon reading the text had been scoffing at it, sure it was part of some stupid prank Pat was pulling on him, although it has been years since they’ve let any of the guys convince them to participate in any prank wars after the disaster that was _Phonegate_ in 2013.

Jonny’s second thought after rereading the message had been disbelief at the fact that Patrick would use the word unerring in a sentence. Jonny knows Pat’s not stupid, of course, he’s actually far too smart for what people give him credit for. But he’s definitely a man of easier words, a more practical man, Jonny would say. Simpler the better, is what Pat’s motto could be. 

So, _unerring_? Not Pat-like at all. 

And that had been when the shadow of something moving at Jonny’s feet had pulled Jonny’s gaze down and he’d seen the bunny. He’d seen _Patrick_. 

Jonny’s instinctive reaction had been to call Sharpy, but he’s now regretting not taking a couple of seconds to think of literally anything else to do. 

“Why am I doubting it so much?” Jonny asks a little hysterically back at Sharpy, his free hand gesticulating wildly as he speaks. “I don’t know! Maybe because Patrick fucking turned into a fucking rabbit?”

The rabbit - _Patrick_ \- hops backwards a couple of shorts steps, like Jonny raising his voice has startled it. Jonny feels a tight squeeze in his chest, a squeeze that feels too much like guilt but he refuses to study further. 

“Well, I don’t know what else to tell you,” Sharpy says, gearing up to continue saying something else, but Jonny hangs up on him before he can. 

The house is eerily silent now that no one is on the other end of the line and Jonny swallows, hoping it’ll help clear his throat of the uncomfortable sensation of nerves. 

As more cold air makes it inside, this time ruffling the bunny’s - _Patrick’s_ \- fur, Jonny takes a step back and reaches backwards with his arm, extending it and blindly searching for the front door. Once his hand makes contact with it Jonny closes it with a push, all the while keeping his back to the door and his body facing towards the small rabbit. 

The interior of the space feels immediately warmer and Jonny swears he can sense the bunny’s contentment now, his front paws rubbing its cute, pink nose and long whiskers. 

Jonny swallows again for a lack of anything better to do and he stares down at the rabbit as the rabbit stares back at him, standing on its back legs, neck bent back so it can look up at Jonny properly. It’s such a small creature, Jonny fully realizes then, so small that it barely reaches Jonny’s ankles. It looks like it would perfectly fit on Jonny’s hands if he were to pick it up and then desire to do it suddenly becomes so strong that Jonny feels a tingling in his fingers and palms. 

Jonny bites his lip as he takes his eyes away from the rabbit for the first time in some long minutes to look around the room, trying to figure out what to do next. 

The low sound of shuffling comes from down on the floor, and Jonny lowers his eyes to see the bunny hopping closer to him until it’s standing on the tip of his sneakers, its weight so light Jonny almost can’t feel it on his toes. 

The bunny presses its front paws to Jonny’s feet a couple of times, like it's trying to get Jonny’s complete attention even though Jonny’s been solely focused on it since he found out of its existence. 

One of the bunny’s front paws reaches for Jonny’s calves, and it’s nails gets stuck on the material of Jonny’s sweatpants. The rabbit shakes its paw trying to detach from Jonny’s bottoms but it can’t do it on its own, so Jonny bends his knees and crunches down to very carefully pull the bunny’s nails away from the soft cotton of his trousers. 

In this position, Jonny is much closer to the bunny now, so close that he can actually notice just how blue the animal’s eyes are. Jonny would recognize that blue anywhere. It’s a blue so unlike anything else in the world, a blue unmatched by the color of the clear sky, a blue unrivaled by the most crystalline oceans. It’s a blue that haunts Jonny’s every thought, the color of all his daydreams and all his hopes. 

It’s unmistakably _Patrick’s_ blue. 

“You really are Kaner, eh?” Jonny asks the bunny, who moves his ears back and forth and hops twice on his toes, as if trying to give Jonny all the signs that he’s answering in affirmative. “Wait, Peeks, can you understand me?”

The bunny squeaks at Jonny and somehow makes it sound like he’s offended that Jonny could have ever doubted him. 

“How— Hop twice if you understand me, Pat,” Jonny instructs, intensely watching the bunny as it moves away from Jonny’s foot to hop twice in a circle, looking back at Jonny after his demonstration. 

“Holy fuck,” Jonny murmurs, Pat jumping back closer to him to hit Jonny’s left foot with his right front paw in commiseration. “Only you’d get stuck as a fucking bunny, Peeks.”

More quickly than Jonny can process the movement, Pat moves to sink his pointy teeth on one of Jonny’s hands, catching the meat of his palm between his thumb and index finger. 

“Motherfu—” Jonny curses, moving his hand away from Patrick’s rabbit teeth and shaking it out, unsuccessfully willing the pain away. “Of course you’re an asshole even in this form.”

Patrick shows Jonny his teeth threateningly, making him put his hands up in surrender to prevent another sneaky attack. Pat immediately backs down, his mouth closing, his ears dropping and his paws coming to rest against his fluffy, white chest. 

And then, he sneezes again. 

_____________________________________

Jonny picks Pat up for the first time with the upmost care. He wills his hands not to shake as he lets Pat hop onto them, but his knees are a lost cause, knocking into each other as Jonny stands up to his full height very slowly. Pat stays still as Jonny moves, probably as terrified that Jonny will drop him as Jonny himself is. 

The trek to the couch feels never-ending, each step Jonny takes feeling like a battle against gravity. It’s fortunate that Jonny knows the layout to Pat’s house well enough to walk it with his eyes closed, because he finds himself unable to move his gaze away from Pat’s rabbit figure. Pat’s head is turning left and right, his beady eyes searching every corner of the hallway, and then the living room. 

Jonny wonders what the sensation must be like for Pat. Things must feel so different within such a tiny body, no way to communicate in words, no possibility of doing things in the way Pat’s accustomed to. It must be truly terrifying, it’s what Jonny concludes after also looking around the room, trying to view and catalogue things from Pat’s new perspective. 

Jonny is finally able to take a deep breath after he sitting down on Pat’s couch, Pat’s small body resting on his lap as Pat keeps looking around the living room. Jonny debates for less than a second letting Pat down and encouraging him to explore the space around him in his new form, but his sudden fear of breaking contact with Pat wins out in the end. 

So much could go wrong in this situation, and Pat -who Jonny has never seen as anything less than an equal, no matter how many people have tried to imply that Pat’s size makes him less of a valuable hockey player- is so defenseless like this. 

Jonny reaches out with his left hand and touches his fingertips to the fur on top of Pat’s head, in the space right between Pat’s long ears. Pat, who had still been distracted by the space he’s normally so familiar with but must feel so foreign now, startles a bit at the contact, his fur raising up as if his instincts had mistaken Jonny for a predator. 

Jonny pulls his hand away, saying apologetically, “Didn’t mean to scare you, Peeks.”

Pat sniffs out of his nose, the closest thing to a sigh Jonny figures he can make. He tilts his head to the side, his bunny ears twitching rhythmically to a song Jonny is unable to hear. How enhanced is Pat’s hearing the the moment? How much have his senses changed and how freaky must it be to go through the world like that?

A touch to his left hand pulls Jonny away from thinking about the logistics of the situation. Looking down, he sees Pat’s small paw resting on top of his much bigger hand. Pat taps his paw twice to the back of Jonny’s hand, like he’s trying to convey something to Jonny in a voiceless manners. 

Jonny only understand what Pat is trying to say when Pat touches Jonny’s hand once and then uses his paw to touch his own face, the movement turning into Pat rubbing his nose for a few seconds as Jonny has seen so many bunnies do before. 

“Oh,” Jonny exhales, excitement suddenly bubbling up in his chest. “Are you giving me permission to pet you?”

Pat stops rubbing his nose abruptly, his attention entirely back on Jonny again. He makes the huffy sound once more, the one that Jonny is now almost one hundred percent sure means Pat’s frustrated. 

Pat then nods, his eyes blinking in timing with his head’s movements, as are his ears, contracting and stretching a couple of times as if also showing their agreement. 

Jonny moves deliberately slow, keeping his hands in Pat’s sights at all times as not to scare him. Pat moves an inch or so closer to Jonny’s chest, his feet so light on Jonny’s thighs. He uses one of his front paws to tap Jonny’s chest impatiently, clearly urging him to move faster. Jonny keeps his pace, however, and it takes his hand a couple more seconds to make contact with Pat’s bunny body. 

The first thing Jonny registers is the tickling sensation of Pat’s fur on his fingertips, and as his hand buries itself further in Pat’s white and brown coat, he gets lost in the feeling of Pat’s softness. Pat has more hair than Jonny had thought he would just by looking at him, his fingers completely hidden away in Pat’s fur before they finally reach Pat’s body. 

Jonny keeps touching and petting Pat as his blue eyes look up at Jonny lazily. He’s obviously enjoying the attention and the little massage Jonny is giving him, clear by the way his tiny body shudders and his ears have relaxed completely. 

Jonny moves his hand from Pat’s back to the top of his head, this time using only two of his fingers to rub between Pat’s bunny ears. He runs his fingers down Pat’s head to between his eyes, watching as Pat tries to follow the path with his eyes, going cross-eyed in the process, and then giving up and closing his eyes. 

Jonny smiles softly as he moves his hand further down, reaching Pat’s muzzle and tapping his pink nose twice. Patty opens his eyes and throws a glare Jonny’s way, very impressively in the way his small body is able to convey so much exasperation. 

Jonny laughs, whispering a soft apology and going back to caressing Pat’s soft bunny body. 

Jonny isn’t sure how long they spend in that position, Pat on Jonny’s lap, Jonny lavishing him in caresses, and pets, and sometimes a few rougher scratches to the fluffier area of his body. It could be minutes or it could be days, but Jonny finds himself content to stay there as long as he can. 

There’s something so comforting and relaxing about touching Pat like this. The softness of Pat’s fur feels great against Jonny’s skin, his nerves singing delightedly with every slow caress. It’s addictive, and Jonny wishes he could keep running his fingers and palm through Pat’s coat forever and a day. 

The more Jonny touches Pat in this new form he’s wearing, the more he can forget that this is actually Patrick that he’s touching. There is nothing even remotely similar about the feel of Pat’s bunny body in Jonny’s hand compared to the solidness of Pat’s usual human form, not that Jonny has ever had the opportunity to caress and touch Patrick this way before. 

Their touches have always been subtler and more fleeting. Jonny’s arm around Pat’s shoulder to pull him into a joke, Pat’s fist colliding with Jonny’s shoulder after a good pass during practice, high fives, back slaps, fist bumps. Even the longer touches have always served a purpose: a celly hug, the clasping of their hands when shaking on stupid bets, arms wrapped around one another for pictures. 

It’s never been like this before for them. Touching for the sake of touching. Time spent in nothing but each other, bodies swallowed in the moment, minds drifting in the exploration of each other. 

Jonny’s never had Pat like that, and if he thinks about it too much, the knowledge of only getting this time -the time when Pat isn’t even himself, the time when Pat’s body isn’t really Pat’s body- to satiate his heart’s hunger makes him want to grab Pat’s furry little body, bury his face in his fluffy coat, and never let go. 

But it’s weird thinking of touching Pat in the ways he’s dreamt of for years when he remembers that Pat’s form is, at the moment, the furthest thing from his normal body it could ever be. 

So Jonny turns his brain off as well as he knows how, letting his thoughts vanish and fade, the only thing his body is focused on the feeling of velvety hair between his fingers. 

Jonny gets pulled out of his meditative state by Pat twisting and turning on his lap, having grown obviously bored of the attention and wanting to be let down on the floor if Jonny is to guess what his pointing and eye-movements are about. 

“I guess I have to tell front office about whatever the fuck this is,” Jonny says, referring to Pat’s little furry problem. “I can let you down to explore but if you die because something fell on you, or you jumped in the fucking toilet, or something, I will fucking kill you myself, Patrick.”

Pat rolls his eyes, the most human of actions he’s done while in his rabbit shape, nodding at Jonny and pointing to the floor again impatiently. 

Jonny picks him up from his lap and deposits him on the floor, watching him turn the corner of the living room and disappear from sight. 

Jonny is restless all through his call with the front office, the whole forty-five minutes of it. He stays seated on the couch, but he finds himself desperate to search for Pat, desperate to have him in sight again and make sure nothing else has changed in the time he’s been gone. 

Jonny doesn’t trust magic at all, it seems. If it’s done this to Patrick already, what is to say it can’t do worse things to him if Jonny doesn't keep him nearby at all times?

Relief courses through Jonny’s veins when the conference calls ends after it’s been decided that Patrick will be listed to the media as a day-to-day upper body injury. He’s miles away already as the last details of the situation get discussed and resolved by everyone else, his mind a constant loop of _find Patrick, see Patrick, protect Patrick_. 

His lugs only seem to remember how to take in air when Patrick -small, white, and brown body hoping around his home gym, sniffing at weights and elastic bands curiously- is right in front of him again. 

“Hey, Peeks,” Jonny announces himself as he walks into the room, his voice softer than it would normally be to account for Pat’s enhanced hearing. “Never again make me have to discuss your furry situation with Stan and Coach, alright? That was the weirdest fucking conversation I’ve ever had to have.”

Patrick leaves behind every item he was exploring, hoping closer to Jonny as he exhales through his nose and mouth in what Jonny believes to be an approximation of Pat’s usual mischievous giggles. 

“I’m serious,” Jonny says as he crouches down to let Pat climb into the palms of his hands. “This better be a one time only thing, because I don’t know how I feel about the idea of you randomly turning into different animals every month.”

Jonny stands up with Pat on his hands, his movements a lot more confident than the first time he did this. His fear of hurting Patrick in this vulnerable form hasn’t dispersed, but he’s getting better at handling Pat with care in a natural way, in a way that protects him instead of putting him at risk from Jonny himself. 

Jonny walks out of the gym as he continues babbling on, trying to fill in the empty spaces in the conversation. 

“I mean, what happens if you turn into a lion, eh? Or a wolf?”

The world feels so silent without Patrick’s voice responding to him. 

After ten years of friendship, ten years where they've spent countless hours together, more than they’ve probably spent with any other human being, their interactions don’t need words to sustain themselves anymore. They’re good at simply being, simply existing side by side, the comfort of the other person being there enough to keep them going. 

But now that Patrick’s voice is so out of reach, Jonny wishes more than anything in the world to go back to the nights where they used to whisper to each other across hotel beds, to go back to the times spent yelling loudly at each other in the middle of a game on the bench. 

“I’m going to take you to the backyard because I imagine you need to do some of your business, right? And I simply refuse to clean up after you if you shit inside, Kane. That’s my hard limit, sorry.”

That’s how the rest of the day is spent, Jonny being Pat’s blabbering shadow, the world getting dark around them as Jonny often forgets Patrick -real Patrick, _his_ Patrick- isn’t really there. 

It hits him in the smallest of moments. When he orders Chinese food and instinctively asks for Patrick’s favorite dishes even though he hasn't shown the slightest of interests in human food all day. When he sits down to watch hockey in Pat’s living room with Pat placed on the couch next to him, and keeps expecting to hear him comment on the Oilers’ power play. When Patrick’s cellphone rings and rings and rings and Jonny almost shouts at him to pick it up already. 

It’s the most unsettling day Jonny’s had in his entire life. 

It’s having Patrick next to him and yet not having him at all, and although Jonny should be more than used to that, it feels like he’s back to being a rookie, his feelings for Pat growing and growing and growing and him not knowing how to handle them at all. 

Nighttime arrives both faster and slower than Jonny can process it. 

Pat’s guest room is familiar to Jonny, so at least getting changed for bed with some of the clothes he’s left over the years at Pat’s and lying down on the mattress he helped picked out only last year, feels like the most normal thing in a pretty atypical day. 

He could have gone home, he knows, could have picked Pat up, placing him on his lap for the short duration of the ride from Pat’s house to his, and slept on his own bed, in the comfort of his own space. 

But Jonny hasn’t forgotten throughout the whole day that, as strange as things are for him, Pat is the one most severely affected by this current unexplainable twist of fate. If Jonny can give him some solace by staying with him in Pat’s space, he will do that day and night again and again until things go back to normal. 

Sleep evades him as he tosses and turns in bed, his mind going through the events of the day, searching for explanations, for answers to a question he isn't even sure how to ask. What can he do to get Patrick back? Is this lesson that the universe is trying to teach meant for Patrick, or for the people around him? 

He asks and asks and asks, but all that every inquiry gets him is an open door to another doubt. 

By two in the morning, Jonny has given up hope on falling asleep. He’ll have to suffer through a ruthless practice in the morning, but he’s pushed his mind and his body through worse. 

He’s about to sit up in bed and pick up his phone from the nightstand to entertain himself when his door starts hinging open. He had left it ajar right before he got into bed just in case Patrick needed anything while he was asleep. It had taken every bit of strength in him to leave Pat behind as he went to the guest room, but he knew asking Pat -even in this unprecedented state- to sleep next to him would have been too complicated and messy, even for the already complicated and messy situation they’re in. 

Now, it seems that it’s Patrick who’s seeking him out. 

The little pattering of Pat’s paws hitting the wooden floors as he hops closer to the bed is the only sound that can be heard in the room until Jonny speaks, his voice really low and raspy. 

“Peeks?”

Jonny’s eyes adjust to the dark just as Pat halts next to the king-sized bed, right by the side that Jonny has always claimed as his own. Jonny has to look over the edge of the mattress to see Pat, and he’s hit by the sight of his small furry body as if this was the first time he was seeing it. It’s not that Jonny could have forgotten about it -that’s impossible in ways Jonny can’t even explain-, but it’s the kind of thing that only becomes real once you have it right in front of you. 

Pat’s front paws are holding a piece of carrot as he looks up at Jonny in bed, one of the pieces that Jonny had cut from the miraculous lone carrot Pat had had in hid fridge amidst containers of take out and protein shakes just in case Pat got hungry during the night. 

“Hey, you,” Jonny whispers at Pat, Pat’s eyes reflecting the small amount of moonlight coming in through the curtains. “Can’t sleep either?”

Pat hops in place twice, jumping higher than he does when he’s just trying to walk across a space. The movement helps Jonny realize what Pat wants pretty quickly. 

“You want me to pick you up and put you in bed?” Jonny asks, already pretty sure of what the wordless answer will be. 

Pat confirms Jonny’s suspicions with a short nod and Jonny doesn’t give himself time to rethink the request, bending down to pick Pat up from the floor with both hands. He’s about to place Pat down on the mattress next to him when he impulsively decides against him, lying down instead and letting Pat’s body rest on his chest, Pat’s long nails snagging a little on his old Blackhawks t-shirt. 

Patrick tilts his head from side to side, his bunny ears swinging funnily at the moment, making Jonny chuckle lightly. He reaches over with his left hand to very lightly flick one of them, making Pat grumble and twitch his nose at the touch. 

It’s such a _Patrick_ movement, even in a body so different from his own. It’s the kind of nose twitch that Pat always does when he’s annoyed with something Jonny has said or done, the kind of nose twitch that Jonny has always found unbearably adorable. 

In his pink, little bunny nose the action is cuter than ever, something Jonny didn’t even think was possible. It’s devastating to watch. The nose, the ears, the whiskers, the paws, the fur,… Everything about Pat in this form is devastating. So perhaps things aren't that different to usual at all. 

This proves now -in a way Jonny never thought he would have confirmed but has always been completely aware of- that no matter Pat’s shape, form, state, or disposition, Jonny will always be devoted to him, tied to him through the most genuine love Jonny’s ever felt. He’s never truly held any hope for getting over Patrick, and that’s why perhaps the confirmation of it feels like a natural progression in his life, more than a shocking revelation. 

Jonny sighs as his brain still rattles around the questions he was pondering about before. The air from his exhale hits Pat in the face, ruffling some of his fluffy coat on top of his head. Jonny puts his left hand on Pat’s back and uses his right hand to smooth down Pat’s fur softly, his fingers so delicate against Pat’s hair and body. 

Pat’s eyes close at the touch and a hum escapes him, nose twitching again, only this time in contentment. Jonny keeps running his fingers through his fur, lightly massaging the skin between Pat’s ears and eyes. 

With his eyes still closed Pat moves his front paws, bringing the carrot to his mouth and biting into it, the sound of his chewing loud in the otherwise silent room. Pat keeps chomping on his carrot as Jonny caresses him and plays with the fluff of his body, the feel of its softness the perfect relaxant. 

One chomp and some chewing. Three chomps, a pause and then two more chomps. 

Pat keeps eating, Jonny keeps petting, and the night doesn’t quite look so bad if it can be spent like this. 

Jonny realizes it the moment Pat falls asleep in the middle of chewing, the small bite of carrot he was nibbling on rolling out of his mouth, spit leaving a wet spot on Jonny’s t-shirt. He should find it more disgusting than he actually does, but he just picks the piece up and puts it on the nightstand to throw away in the morning. 

Jonny, as he already knew it would be, is incapable of falling asleep all night long. But as he listens to Pat’s quick, rhythmic breathing, and watches his little body move up and down in tandem with the rise and fall of Jonny’s own chest, he admits he’s had much worse nights in his life. 

_____________________________________

Jonny gets up the next morning feeling like he’s aged a thousand years in the course of a handful of hours. Sleepless nights never used to affect him this much, but each year that passes finds him needing more recovery time for his troubles - physical or emotional. 

Pat, on the other hand, wakes up reenergized, full of sunshine, rainbows, and candy. He’s all over the house as Jonny prepares breakfast for himself, hopping from one room to another without stopping to take a single breath. This tiny, bunny version of Patrick reminds Jonny of Pat on the ice - always around, always unpredictable, capable of absolutely everything. Unflagging. 

The comparison breaks Jonny’s heart as soon as it crosses his mind. He’s shared a team with Patrick for a decade now, but they’ve known what it’s like to play without the other. Hockey is a sport of injuries, and Pat and him haven’t been immune to them at all. This is different, however, knowing that Pat is right there, healthy in every conceivable way, and yet unavailable in the manner that matters most. 

Jonny despairs at the knowledge that practice will have to go on without Pat today, and that, unless a miracle occurs in the next 24 hours, so will their home game against Dallas. The worst part is the uncertainty of it all. If Jonny could be sure it’d be just this one game he’d relax, give it his all, and view this as one more unfortunate game that he and Pat can’t play together. But all signs point to something longer, something more painful.

Jonny can’t get rid of the tightness in his throat or the pressure in his chest all throughout breakfast, getting ready for practice, and the drive to the rink. Pat sits dutifully on his lap as Jonny drives, his small body moving slightly with the curves of the road, Jonny always making sure to use one of his hands to steady and stabilize him.

Jonny hesitates as soon as his car’s parked in the parking lot of the rink, rethinking his decision of having brought Pat with him. It never even crossed his mind to leave Pat behind while practice took place, a big difference between being able to give Patrick some freedom to explore his house on his own and moving miles away from him to try and focus on hockey. 

Now, looking around the parking lot and spotting most of the other players’ cars, Jonny wonders if it wouldn’t have been better to just suffer through that tiny bit of separation anxiety. 

The guys’ reaction when Jonny walks into the locker room with Pat held gently in his hands is exactly what Jonny expected, and yet nothing like what he expected at all. 

The whole room goes mute as soon as he steps foot in it, the silence disturbing and erroneous for a place normally so boisterous and full of life. It sends a chill down his spine. He’s only ever seen their locker room like this after their toughest and most hurtful losses, and all of a sudden he feels compelled to look down at Pat in his hands to check he’s still there. He is, of course. Because Pat is not lost, not exactly, he’s just a little misplaced. 

Jonny knows Sharpy took care of the announcement about the situation yesterday, because the group chat blew up all day long with everyone’s bewildered messages. But once again, seeing is really believing, and it’s quite obvious that this is the first time the guys _truly_ believe what’s going on.

Pat -from his position still held in Jonny’s hands- blinks back at each of their teammates, his gaze moving slowly from one to the other until every single player has felt what it’s like to be stared down by a small, cute, but also somewhat unsettling, bunny. 

And then, he sneezes. 

“Holy shit,” Duncs mutters, his voice breaking the tension and making the locker room explode back into its usual chaotic mess. 

The guys start approaching Jonny in all states of undress, hockey gear left behind in their stalls, shirts and pants littering the floor as if every single one of these monsters had been raised by wolves, when Jonny knows they’ve all got perfectly lovely mothers and fathers that deserve better sons that the ones they got. 

A semi-circle of over-excited hockey players quickly forms around Jonny, who drops his sports bag to the floor in a quick movement so he can focus all of his attention and strength on holding Pat and sheltering him from most of the overwhelming energy that has infected the room. 

Loud and deep voices mix and tangle around Jonny and Pat, but some comments can be distinguished amongst them. 

“He’s so cute,” Seabs says, his voice sounding softer than Jonny’s ever heard it sound. 

“This is wild,” Brinsky states, him and some of the other younger guys a little more tentative and shy than the older players in their appreciation of the situation. 

“Can I hold him, Tazer?” Saader asks, his question meant entirely for Jonny but his eyes focused solely on Pat’s tiny form. His arms are already stretched and his fingers are twitching, like his excitement over holding Pat is escaping through them somehow. 

Saader’s face is a perfect portrait of awe and astonishment, and as Jonny looks around to the rest of his team he realizes everyone’s expressions reveal the same emotions. 

Each and every single one of them is captured by Pat, their wide eyes set on his figure almost unblinkingly, like sailors entranced by a siren. The only time Jonny has ever seen all of them look this focused and attentive has been during hockey games, and none of them have ever looked at a puck with the level of softness that their gazes hold at the moment. 

Pat, on his part, seems to be reveling on the attention. He’s sitting tall -spine straight and head held high-in Jonny’s cupped hands, his ears turning left and right as if trying to catch each of the voices singing his praises. Jonny can’t see his face from this position, but he can imagine his light blue eyes dancing wildly across every player as his nose twitches and his whiskers vibrate in joy. 

Jonny is about to answer Saader’s question in the negative -because he’s not about to let any of these savage man-children hold Pat when he’s so fragile and vulnerable- when Pat is rudely snatched from his hands, the culprit none other than Sharpy. 

“Well, well, well,” Sharpy pronounces, bringing his face really close to Pat’s muzzle, their noses almost touching. “If it isn’t teeny, tiny Peekaboo.”

Jonny wants to shout all of his protests in the most creative of ways at Pat being taken from him, but taking a closer look at Pat stops him from doing just that. He looks more than just content, he looks happy, his eyes sparkling with mirth and his whole body quavering in elation. 

“You can’t protest the team calling you cute now, Kaner,” Sharpy keeps talking, his tone of voice lightly resembling the one he uses when he talks to Maddie or other players’ kids. 

Jonny takes a step away from Sharpy and Pat as his heart gives a painful lurch in his chest. He knows it isn’t fair at all, the way in which he’s feeling jealous and resentful. For a short period of almost 24 hours, Jonny was Pat’s entire world, his protector, the Sun to Patrick’s Earth, the person Pat could orbit around incessantly and tirelessly. 

Pat had never needed Jonny like that before, and Jonny would be lying if he said that it hadn’t pleased him immensely to get to see Pat rely on him so much, even if the situation was as unconventional as it could be. 

The illusion has been all broken now, as he sees Pat get happily petted by Sharpy as the man murmurs teasing words to him. Jonny watches as Pat starts getting passed around player to player, all of them so much more careful than Jonny had ever thought them capable of being. 

It hits him harder and hurts him more deeply than any smash against the boards he’s ever been on the receiving end of during his hockey career. 

Patrick in his bunny form hadn’t truly needed him yesterday, just like Patrick in his human form has never truly needed him. He’d been the convenient human that had been around to handle every little thing that Pat couldn’t do in his rabbit body. If Sharpy, or Seabs, or Crow, or any of the other guys, had been the ones to find Pat like Jonny did, he would have been just as content. Just as happy. 

Patrick, even through all of this, still doesn’t need him. And Jonny prefers not to ponder too much about whether he’s actually wanted or not. 

Picking up his sports bag from the floor, Jonny walks towards his stall, trying so hard not to let his eyes wander over to check where Pat is every two seconds. He manages to do it for about half a minute but as soon as he takes his first peak at Pat, all bets are off and he’s back to constantly getting pulled into Patrick. 

Perhaps it was always Jonny being the Earth to Patrick’s Sun. Perhaps that’s all it will ever be. 

At some point when Jonny wasn’t looking, Patrick was set down on the floor by someone, and although the Blackhawks’ locker room has never in its life seen a bunny hop its space before, there is something so fitting about Pat being there. 

Jonny can sense some of the discomfort in the air, the guys’ shared worry about Patrick -their _real_ Patrick- not being there with them. But he also can see it in everyone’s postures that having Pat here with them in this form is better than not having him at all. 

No matter how much Jonny wishes he had made a different decision this morning about bringing Pat with him to practice for the sake of his own feelings, he knows it was the correct choice. The choice of a Captain. 

Jonny is getting into his hockey gear, sat down on his stall pulling up his socks, when Pat jumps on his lap as soon as he straightens his body back up. 

“Peeks?” Jonny asks him, his legs taunt so Pat won’t fall from them. 

Patrick squeaks at him, rubbing his face into Jonny’s bare stomach, his fur tickling him and making him chuckle. Pat makes a snickering sound of his own before hopping off Jonny’s lap and going in search of the rookies. 

It goes like that the whole time Jonny is changing into his practice uniform. 

Pat fleets around the room, his white and light brown body almost a blur with how quickly it hops from one place to another. The guys are completely at his mercy, showering him in caresses and small pieces of carrot that Jonny doesn't know where they even got. 

But Pat always returns to Jonny, always comes back to him. Sometimes, he wordlessly begs for pats. Other times, he just cheeps at Jonny until he laughs or chastises him fondly. Always, he twitches his nose happily -clearly proud of having gotten Jonny’s attention- before leaving again, off to some other locker room adventure. 

Something loosens up in Jonny’s chest more and more each time the event repeats itself. 

It’s obvious, Jonny concludes as he catches Pat’s eyes looking towards him while being held by Gus, that Pat is seeking comfort every time he reaches for Jonny. He’s using Jonny as his lighthouse, the place he knows he can always return to, the place he knows he will always find. The place that he considers safer than anywhere else in the world. 

Jonny has to look at his arms and legs carefully where he’s seated in his stall just to check he hasn’t randomly turned into a bird. He hasn’t, but he still feels like he could fly. 

Patrick make his way back to Jonny just as he’s finishing getting ready and tying his skates. Pat taps Jonny’s skate blades -still enveloped by their plastic cover- with his left paw, and Jonny easily reads the sadness in his eyes. 

He reaches over with his right hand to rub between Pat’s ears for a couple of seconds, and then cupping Pat’s small face in his hand, and making Pat look him in the eye. 

“I promise you’ll be back on the ice with us soon, Pat,” Jonny states, his voice unwavering and sure. “I promise.”

Pat sniffles and nods at him, his paws rubbing at his nose in a gesture Jonny is becoming increasingly familiar with. 

“Oh, Patty Bunny,” Sharpy coos as he kneels next to Pat at Jonny’s feet. “Do you miss being a real boy?” 

Once again, Sharpy brings his face close to Pat’s but this time, the action isn’t as appreciated. Sharpy’s soft teasing has ignited Pat’s pettier and more mischievous side, and Pat uses his bunny teeth so show Sharpy just how little he will tolerate being messed with, even in this form. 

Sharpy shouts as soon as Pat’s cutting teeth sink into his nose, the sound strident and catching the whole locker room’s attention. The sight of tiny bunny Pat biting Sharpy’s nose soon has everyone in hysterics, and the guys keeps poking fun at Sharpy for it even when they’ve already moved out of the locker room and are skating on the ice. 

Practice happens in the way it normally does, with the exception of Pat in rabbit form watching everything from the sidelines. He’s being held by one of the assistant coaches, the man looking uncomfortable and worried, like he’s questioning whether whatever it is that the organization pays him is worth all the trouble. 

Jonny aches with the need to skate to him and rip Pat out of his arms, but he challenges that energy into doing every drill harder, into pushing further every time he has the puck. 

He’s panting heavily after a one-on-one with Dahls when Seabs approaches him, showering him in some ice with his stop. Jonny glares at him as Seabs laughs and rests his stick on the ice to place his chin against the handle. 

“So, you know why Kaner has turned into the Mad Hatter all of a sudden?” Seabs asks, not beating around the bush in the slightest. 

Jonny instinctively turns to look towards Pat, who is paying them no mind and instead is looking at some of the guys shooting penalties at Crow. He shrugs as his gaze stays focused on Patrick, the questions that have been rattling around in his brain since finding Pat in a rabbit form growing louder and louder thanks to Seabs inquiry. 

“I have no fucking idea,” Jonny admits, even if doing so frustrates him to no end. “I know there must be some kind of cosmic meaning, or whatever, but I really don’t know.”

A loud scoff comes from Jonny’s right, and Jonny turns around to see who made the sound. Sharpy is standing there, looking back at him and rolling his eyes exaggeratedly. 

“What?” Jonny says, forgetting he’s holding a hockey stick his his hands and going to cross his arms defensively, having to halt the movement abruptly and flushing a little over the flounder. 

“You are the thickest motherfucker I’ve ever met,” Sharpy responds, although Jonny fails to see how that has anything to do with the question Jonny asked him. “And I dealt with Jamie Benn when Segs turned into a fucking Labrador puppy.” 

“I don’t—” Jonny stutters, trying to make sense of Sharpy’s words but unable to see what Sharpy is trying to really say. “Do you know why Patrick is a bunny, Sharpy? Do you— How do you— What?”

“Everyone knows, Tazer,” Sharpy says, making a sweeping gesture with his arm towards the entire of the Hawks roster and staff members. “Except you and Kaner, of course, because you guys are fucking idiots.” 

Jonny frowns and turns back around to look at Seabs, who is still standing behind him with his chin on his stick’s handle. Seabs reads the question in Jonny’s eyes and chuckles lightly. 

“I mean, yeah,” he says, easily confirming Sharpy’s words. 

“How—” Jonny fumbles with his words again, throwing his hands up, his stick hitting the ice harshly when he brings his arms back down. “Just tell me, you assholes!”

“Oh no,” Sharpy says, coming to stand next to Seabs in front of Jonny. “It’s not our job to do this. It’s yours. Yours and Kaner’s. So good luck, dude.”

Sharpy clasps his hand on Jonny’s right shoulder as Seabs does the same thing on Jonny’s left one. Together, they shake Jonny’s upper body slightly before letting go of him and skating away to join the rest of the team for the end of the practice.

Jonny stays rooted on the spot, his brain working three-hundred miles an hour to try and find the answers to a question Jonny still fails to properly formulate.

_____________________________________

No matter how much Jonny ponders, ponders, and ponders, no matter how much he paces, paces, and paces that night as Pat is off doing God knows what around the house, the questions remain unanswered, the doubts remain flaming hot. 

The only thing Sharpy’s and Seabs’s words have served to do is make the guilt inside Jonny grow from a tiny, blooming flower bud into an immensely gorgeous but dangerous rosebush. 

There is no way he can deny it any longer, him being the reason why Patrick is stuck in this form. Or at least having an unknowing involvement in it. 

But the most important question still remains: why did Patrick get transformed, and not Jonny? 

If this is some sort of punishment for Jonny’s many, many transgressions, it would only make sense that Jonny should have been the one to suffer it and not Pat. If it is some sort of lesson that Jonny should be learning, it should be him taking the brunt of the hard work and not Pat. Jonny doubts magic like this fails, that it makes mistakes in who to target, who to transform, and who to spare. 

Perhaps, and this makes the matter worse, Pat’s transformation _is_ Jonny’s punishment and lesson. Perhaps taking the most important person in his life from him is what the universe decided Jonny deserves. That would make Pat just a pawn, simple collateral damage for Jonny’s sins.

Perhaps Jonny being in love with Patrick is what cursed Patrick in the first place.

_____________________________________

The game against Dallas is a complete and utter disaster. 

The Hawks suffer a blowing 4-1 loss, the pain of it amplified by it happening at home, in what is supposed to be their domain. Jonny scored the Hawk’s only goal, but not even that does anything to lessen the hurt he feels at his team failing. At him failing his team. 

Rationally, Jonny knows Pat’s absence cannot be the only reason for their defeat, but he’s also sure that it played a much bigger role that anyone could even imagine. It wasn’t just the lack of Patrick on the rink -the fact that he wasn’t there to pass, score, and fight with them- it was also the knowledge they all possessed of Patrick being somewhere in the arena stuck in a body that wasn’t his own, in a position he seemed to have no power over. 

They were all distracted, distracted and worried. Jonny most of all. 

The locker room feels like a tomb after the game, and not even an assistant coach coming in with Pat in his hands can do much to uplift the mood. Pat is placed next to Jonny in his stall, Jonny muttering a soft thank you to the man who brought him in before going back to untying his skates and undressing. Jonny can’t look at Patrick just yet, afraid of what he’ll find in his big blue eyes. Disappointment, sadness, frustration, anger… Jonny doesn’t know which of the options would be worse. 

Some players walk over to Jonny’s stall to stroke Pat’s fur and murmur some soft words to him, but most of them head to the showers as quickly as they can, understandably eager to make their way home to sulk, lick their wounds, and get emotionally and mentally ready for their next battle. 

Jonny always makes sure to be the last one to leave the locker room, after the worst of losses and the best of wins. He’s the captain, and as the captain he thinks of the locker room as his. His to protect, his to defend, his to cheer up, his to console, his to congratulate. Always his. 

Patrick tends to stay behind with him most days, his sidekick and his right-hand man even when he’s not wearing an A. Today, Patrick is by his side like usual, but he can’t offer Jonny much support in the state he's in. Jonny still prefers this to being alone, however. 

Sharpy is the second to last player to leave the locker room, clapping Jonny on the shoulder and rubbing Pat’s head as he says his goodbyes for the night. He is walking out the door as Jonny zips up his bag to throw it over his shoulder when the two most unexpected visitors walk in, crossing paths with Sharpy. 

“Seggy, my man,” Sharpy greets, shaking hands enthusiastically with the aforementioned man and then waving to the other man that came in. “Benn, hi. I would congratulate you both but the loss is still too raw.”

“That’s what you get for leaving us, Sharp,” Seguin says, obviously teasing Sharpy, who laughs loudly at the comment in good nature. 

“Sure, buddy,” Sharpy says, able to maintain his upbeat attitude despite how tired and dejected he looks. “So why are you guys visiting enemy territory?”

“We don’t have much time, but we wanted to talk to Toews,” Benn answers for the both of them, every men’s attention now focused on Jonny, who is still standing over his sports bag. 

“And Kaner, of course!” Seguin yells excitedly, walking further into the locker room shamelessly, his eyes having found Pat’s bunny form and not straying from him until he reaches Pat’s position. 

Seguin lets go of the bag he was holding to kneel in front of Jonny’s stall, leaving him at Pat’s eye-level.

“Oh my god, it’s really you!” Seguin proclaims loudly, like he would have recognized Pat in his bunny form in a sea of hundreds of other bunnies. “Hi, Kaner!”

Pat chips at him, hopping closer to the edge of the seat he’s standing on, his nose twitching as he smells the hand that Seguin places in front of him. Once he seems satisfied with the scent, he bumps the top of his head into the palm of Seguin’s hand, giving him the obvious go-ahead to touch him. 

“Oh my god,” Seguin says again, only this time his voice is nothing more than an awed whisper as his fingers touch Pat’s fur reverently. “You’re so adorable, oh my god.”

Jonny feels the unmistakable rising of his jealousy in the pit of his stomach, but he reins it in, taking a deep breathe and reminding himself that Patrick isn’t his to keep, not in human form and not in bunny form either. 

“Okay, well,” Sharpy pronounces from where he’s still standing next to Benn at the door. “If you’ve got this little reunion all figured out I’m going home, boys.”

Before Jonny can find a way to beg him not to leave him alone with Seguin and Benn without actually begging, Sharpy is gone, the woody scent of his cologne the only thing of his still left behind. 

Benn walks closer to them now that Sharpy’s left the room, but he keeps more of a distance than Seguin did, his big arms crossed over his chest, the size and look of him unsettling Jonny more now than they've ever done on the ice. 

Benn’s eyes catch his as Jonny finishes his careful sweep of Benn’s figure, and every single notion Jonny held of him vanishes as Benn’s cheeks flush a deep red color. Benn coughs twice, as if clearing his throat to say something, but he stays silent. 

“Can I take a picture?” 

Seguin’s voice pulls Jonny’s attention back to him and Patrick, and it is when he looks back at them that Jonny realizes that the question wasn't meant for him. 

Seguin is looking at Patrick and he’s got his phone in his right hand, his camera app open. He’s patiently waiting for Pat’s response as the bunny has his head tilted to the right in what seems to be his preferred position for deep thinking. After a couple of seconds, Pat nods his bunny head once, giving Seguin permission to take a photo of him. 

It hadn’t even occurred to Jonny to try and immortalize the situation, but he supposes there will come a time after everything has passed when they’ll probably want to reminisce about Pat’s time as a bunny, and having photographic evidence of it will be useful. 

“Could you— Could you send the picture to me?” Jonny asks Seguin, his gaze firmly stuck on Patrick, both because he doesn't ever want to let Pat out of his sight, and because he’s embarrassed of the request he just made. 

“Sure!” Seguin concedes as he shows Pat his phone’s screen for approval on the photo he just took of him. “I don’t have your number but I’ll text it to Sharpy and he can send it to you. That’s actually how we found out about this, Sharpy texted us.”

“Yeah, and we wanted to come reassure you,” Benn says, his words much slower than Tyler’s quick talking. “It was hard for us when it happened to Tyler, but everything worked out okay, and I’m sure it will be the same with Kane.”

Jonny nods, swallowing and tasting the sweet relief of having people who went through the same thing confirm that this is something they got through. 

“How long were you a dog?” Jonny asks, a little reluctant , afraid that Seguin will think he’s prying into business that isn’t his own, but needing as much information as he can get. 

Seguin takes no offense at Jonny’s question and answers sunnily, “About two weeks.”

“16 days,” Benn clarifies instantly. 

Seguin huffs, dropping his phone on his lap to be able to use both his hands to pet Pat and rub behind his ears. Pat sighs contently, his eyes closing, but his ears stay perked up so Jonny knows he’s paying attention to the conversation. Seguin turns his head to look at Benn, his eyes squinting in a glare that Jonny thinks looks too fond to be taken seriously. 

“Fine, 16 days,” Seguin says, rolling his eyes dramatically as he turns back to look at Patrick. “Sorry I didn’t actually count down the exact number of days it was.”

“You were a dog then, so I guess I’ll forgive you for it,” Benn responds, aiming a soft smile Seguin’s way even though Seguin isn’t even looking at him. Benn’s hands have dropped to his sides and he looks a lot more relaxed than he was just thirty seconds ago, like focusing his attention on Seguin makes everything feel more natural to him. 

“And it’s not even like I remember that time, so I —” Seguin says, but Jonny interrupts him before he can finish his sentence. 

“Wait, you don’t remember anything from your time as a dog?” Jonny questions, this new piece of information seeming very important. After all, it’s one of the most concrete answers he’s received about how the whole process works.

Seguin shakes his head and sounds out, “Nuh uh.”

“He understood me perfectly when he was a dog and we could communicate well without him speaking, but as soon as he turned back it was like all his memories had been erased,” Benn explains. 

“I sometimes get flashes and images from back then,” Seguin says as he plays with Pat’s ears, moving them back and forth in turn, Patrick’s blue eyes focused on him as he speaks. “But it’s mostly things like me playing with my dogs, or rolling around in the mud. Like, stupid shit. I don’t really remember anything important.”

“Huh,” Jonny mumbles, storing the knowledge safely in his brain just in case it becomes a crucial piece of the puzzle he’s trying to solve. 

Patrick seems to have gotten tired of being pet and patted, hopping on the bench to move closer to Jonny. Seguin takes this in stride, and he stands up from the floor to position himself next to Benn, leaving them both in front of Jonny. 

“I mean, I know it’s different for everybody, like, I’ve talked to a few other guys that this happened to as well and…” Seguin is explaining but Jonny isn’t really hearing a word he’s saying. He’s much too preoccupied carefully picking Pat up from the bench and pulling him close to his chest so he can straighten back up to his full height. 

He faces Benn and Seguin again, and he finds that Tyler has stopped talking in the time it took Jonny to maneuver around with Pat held in his arms and is looking at him expectantly, waiting for a response. 

“Right, yeah, uh, sure,” Jonny stammers, trying to cover up the fact that he hasn't heard a single word of what Seguin just said by distracting them with a question he’s dying to know the answer to.“Anyway, how did you even turn back?”

Seguin and Benn share an indecipherable look, a look that while Jonny can’t understand, he gets the feeling that it holds the meaning of the universe for both Benn and Seguin. 

“We needed to figure some things out, Tyler and I,” Benn responds, his eyes not moving away from Seguin’s. Jonny feels suddenly out of place, even though they are both the ones intruding in his locker room. 

“It was actually a very helpful situation,” Seguin states as he looks away from Benn’s eyes. He knocks his shoulder into Benn’s, however, like if he can’t look at Benn forever he can at least keep some sort of contact with him. 

“Oh…” Jonny exhales, a thousand million questions rattling around in his brain and somehow feeling like he’s in someway closer to finding some of the answers. 

His mind is still working a thousand miles an hour trying to connect every dot and figure out what else to ask Seguin, when Benn looks at his watch and curses under his breath. 

“We have to go, Ty, or the bus will leave without us,” Benn says, placing his hand on the middle of Seguin’s back and looking apologetically at him. 

“Oh, shit, yeah,” Seguin says, squeezing Benn’s forearm with his hand and then stepping forward to get close to Jonny and Pat again. He bends his knees to look and talk to Patrick better. “Call me when you’re back to normal, Patty Kane.” 

Seguin moves his face uncomfortably close to Jonny’s chest but Jonny stays put, allowing Pat and Seguin a little bit of time to say their goodbyes. His hands do tighten around Patrick’s body lightly, instinct to protect Pat kicking in instantly. Seguin just uses his nose to give Pat’s bunny nose an Eskimo kiss, and Jonny can’t even find the strength in himself to deny that it is a really cute image. 

“Okay, we can go now,” Seguin concludes, moving away from Jonny and Pat and closer to Benn again, who places his hand back on Seguin’s back. 

Benn extends his other arm to clasp Jonny’s shoulder as he says, “Good luck, Toews.”

And then they’re gone, Benn’s hand guiding Seguin out of the locker room, the sound of their steps getting lost down the hallway. And then it’s just Jonny and Pat standing inside the locker room, Patrick still with his bunny ears, and his bunny nose, and his bunny body, and Jonny still with his Patrick and his doubts. 

_____________________________________

Patrick is still a bunny by the time the Hawks’ next road trip comes around, and Jonny doesn’t hesitate for even a millisecond when taking Patrick with him. There’s no question, no choice, no other possibility. 

It takes a little bit of scheduling and a little bit of figuring out, but the whole team -not just the players or coaches, but every member of the staff as well- is on board with it. Pat has always been loved by everyone in the Hawks organization, has always had an innate ability to inspire loyalty by simply being himself, but Patrick as a bunny inspires an affection so profound in everyone that Jonny doesn’t doubt they would all be willing to take a shower of pucks to the face for him. 

Patrick spends his first day on the road being looked after by many different members of the team: he sits on Jonny’s lap for the entire flight to Vancouver, then gets carried to the hotel by Sharpy, gets smuggled in by some of the staff just in case the hotel doesn't allow pets inside, and finally gets taken by the rookies after dinner for a couple hours before they drop him off in Jonny’s room for the night. 

It’s been years since Jonny and Patrick shared a room, and while the situation isn't at all similar to what being roommates on the road used to be between them, Jonny can’t help but be reminded of those times. Times when they understood each other a lot less than they do now, times when they were still trying to prove themselves so hard that every mistake they made felt like a life sentence, times when Jonny found it both so much easier and so much more difficult to disguise his feelings for Patrick. 

Back then, Jonny still harbored some hope that maybe, someday, perhaps, he and Pat could try things, that maybe, someday, perhaps, he would find a way to confess and be confessed in return. Since then, Jonny has realized many things, the most important one being that the being confessed in return part of his fantasies was always unachievable. 

Patrick has spent the past 10 years of his life dating, breaking up with, getting back together with and splitting with women that he always swore were _the one_. He’s proven himself to be a romantic, a hopeless case. Jonny has watched and smiled through all of Pat’s relationships, each one twisting the knife further into his heart, each one more of a confirmation of how much of a hopeless case Jonny also is. 

Remembering a time when Jonny held the belief that he could ever have had Patrick is bittersweet. Bitter because it pains him to think he was ever so naive. Sweet because it’s nice to remember he was once so optimistic. 

Jonny falls asleep that night with Patrick on his chest as it’s been the case for the past 5 nights thatPatrick’s been a bunny. The gentle movements of Pat’s velvety body as he breathes in his sleep are the most comforting thing, a type of lullaby without music or lyrics, a song just composed of Pat’s warmth and the rhythmic beat of his heart. 

Jonny’s routine feels so natural by the next morning that he actually wonders if he’s been counting the days correctly. It shouldn’t feel so right to go on with his life as Pat watches TV from the bed while he munches on some lettuce, when it’s only been six days since Pat was transformed into a fucking rabbit. Things with Patrick have always worked more quickly and more easily than they’ve ever done with anyone else, but it’s weird how not weird the situation feels after so little time. 

That’s not to say that Jonny has stopped racking his brain up looking for the solution to their problem, even if he’s never laughed harder in his life than when his used boxer briefs land on poor, unsuspecting Patrick on the bed as Jonny moves to get in the shower and Patrick makes the highest-pitched sound Jonny has ever heard.

The Hawks win their game against Vancouver in overtime that evening, and while their performance leaves much to be desired, at least Jonny can look Patrick in the eye this time around. 

The mood in the room is joyous and contagious, and Jonny finds himself laughing along with the guys as Patrick hops from stall to stall, getting tickled and cuddled within an inch of his life. 

“Boys! The party’s on tonight!” 

Sharpy’s shout resonates around the locker room, its echo coming from every corner of the room, and from every other player on the team. The floor starts vibrating as the guys stomp on it, and Pat -much smaller than usual Pat- seeks shelter on Jonny’s lap, narrowly avoiding getting stepped on by Crow when he gets enthusiastically pushed by Duncs. 

Jonny hadn’t noticed how hungry for victory his boys were, he hadn't realized just how desperate for a win they felt. They weren't on a losing streak, not really, but they were close to slipping into one. And Patrick’s sudden transformation hadn’t helped matters. 

As he strokes Pat’s fur, he looks around the room and soaks in the atmosphere. The air smells as badly as hockey locker rooms always do, but the scent is somehow less disgusting when it’s mixed in with the sweet odor of excitement that seems to cling to players’ bones after getting off the ice victoriously. 

Patrick’s small body is shaking under Jonny’s hands, but Jonny knows it’s not in fear. It’s pure excitement coated in a layer of frustration. Jonny kisses Pat’s head between his ears, saying nothing to him but knowing that Pat understands him all the same. 

_Soon_ , he’s not saying. _Soon_ , he’s trying to transmit to Patrick. _Soon_ , he’s hoping. 

A clasp on his left shoulder startles Jonny out of his trance, his nose still buried in Pat’s coat. He straightens up and turns his head to find Duncs and Sharpy next to him, both shirtless, both looking smug. 

“So you ready for tonight, Captain?” Duncs asks him, bending at the waist to scratch under Pat’s chin. 

Jonny’s eyes widen as he shakes his head, tightening his grip on Patrick and almost ripping Duncs’ hand away from him. 

“I can’t, I—” Jonny stutters, thinking of how to word his thoughts best so Sharpy and Duncs won’t make fun of him for eternity, but giving up when he can’t come up with anything less incriminating than the truth. “Someone has to stay with Peeks.”

“Oh no, dude,” Sharpy says, waggling his finger right in front of Jonny’s nose, making him dizzy as he tries to follow the movement with his eyes. “You’re coming out with us. Peeks can hang out with Coach for a while.”

“No,” Jonny says, sliding his butt back on the seat to move away from Sharpy and Duncs, but they both take a step forward, following him. 

“Yes,” Sharpy argues, pointing his finger at Patrick. “And Peeks is going to agree with me, right?”

Jonny is about to deny that when he feels a thump on his chest, looking down to see Pat butting his head against it. 

“Pat?” Jonny asks, prompting Pat to look him in the eye. 

When Pat’s sure he has Jonny’s full attention he points at Sharpy with one of his paws and then nods his head very slowly, like he wants to make sure Jonny understands perfectly well what he’s trying to communicate. 

“You agree with Sharpy? Jonny asks for clarification, and Pat nods again. “You want me to go out with the guys?” 

Pat nods for the third time, tapping Jonny’s chest with his paws in time with the movements of his head. 

“Oh,” Jonny exhales, suddenly feeling off-kilter by Pat’s given permission, knowing there is absolutely no reason for him to say no to the rest of the guys now. 

He looks deep into Patrick’s blue eyes, searching for the smallest trace of a lie, or just some simple doubts, but he finds nothing but encouragement. 

“Well,” he says looking at Sharpy and Duncs again, suddenly noticing that the room has quietened a bit. “I guess we’re going out tonight.”

The locker room explodes in a cacophony of jeers and cheers, but Jonny isn’t feeling the excitement much anymore.

_____________________________________

It’s almost two-thirty AM when Jonny makes it back to his room with Patrick carefully held in his hands. 

It’s likely that in a few hours time, when Jonny wakes up with a wicked hangover and with his inhibitions brought back after most of the alcohol has been flushed from his system, he’ll feel guilty about having woken up an assistant coach just so he could bring Pat back to his room with him. But for now, Jonny is happy that Patrick in his teeny, tiny, fluffy body is with him and not with someone else that won’t know how to protect him as well as Jonny does. 

_Find Patrick, see Patrick, protect Patrick_. 

That’s been the loop in Jonny’s brain since Patrick turned into a bunny almost a week ago. Jonny has grown used to Patrick being the center of his thoughts for the last decade, but the current mantra is slightly different than what Jonny’s brain tends to come up with. Less filthy, for sure. Just as soft, definitely, but in a less cheesy and romantic way. 

After all, even if Jonny loves Patrick in any size, shape, or form, not even for him would he turn into a freaking furry. 

The room spins a little as Jonny walks with measured steps from the door to the bed to deposit Pat slowly on it, and to turn on the bedside lamp. The soft, white light that now illuminates the room lets Jonny see Pat’s blue eyes, full of sleep but also showing a hint of amusement. 

Jonny knows that look well. He’s seen it a hundred thousand times in bars, in locker rooms, during Cup celebrations, and team barbecues. 

“Yeah, yeah, Kaner,” Jonny slurs, tripping a bit as he takes off his shoes without using his hands. “You always laugh when I get drunk.”

Patrick makes a low, snickering sound so similar to the human giggles Jonny has heard him let out when he’s laughing at Jonny for not holding his alcohol well. Jonny stops in his tracks and looks at Pat intensely, confused about him still looking like a rabbit when he sounds so much like _his_ Patrick. 

The giggling doesn’t stop as Pat starts hopping around on the bed, messing up the sheets, dislodging them from the corners and creasing them as he gets tangled in them. Only his ears can be seen as the white comforter swallows Pat’s body whole, a distinct lump under it obviously trying to set itself free. The chaos that he himself has created only makes Patrick squeak higher in joy and Jonny’s heart thumps wildly inside his chest. 

“You are the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life,” Jonny blurts out, and Patrick stops moving immediately upon hearing Jonny’s comment. 

His eyes peek out from under the comforter then, unblinking and wide. Jonny swallows as he looks into them, feeling the millions of words he wants to say crowding themselves in his throat, desperate to be set loose. 

Even in his drunken state, Jonny is a sensible man, so he takes a minute to sort through the mess in his brain, reminding himself of all the reasons why it’s a bad idea to tell Pat every single thing he’s always wanted to confess. 

When Patrick turns back into himself, Jonny will be able to pass this episode as nothing more than a drunken mishap, a product of all the alcohol and the cuteness overload of Pat as a little bunny. But if Jonny goes further, if he lets more words spill from his mouth, if he allows the alcohol in him to win this battle, he knows there will be no excuse good enough to cover up the magnitude of his confessions. 

He knows this because Jonny’s been fighting this war for years and years and years now. 

Alcohol and him have been good friends for a long time, and they’ve got a tacit agreement: Jonny doesn't mind acting like a fool every once in a while as long as Alcohol respects his Patrick boundaries, and lets Jonny keep the only piece of modesty he still cares about intact. 

It’s worked so far for him, seeing as how his friendship with Patrick is still going strong and his heart’s desire remains locked away from a certain pair of prying blue eyes. Jonny won't let this stupid magic transformation that the universe has thrown at them mess that up. 

But then, Jonny hears a voice inside his head at the loudest volume possible. 

_“I don’t really remember anything important.”_

Seguin’s comment had seemed like it could prove important for Pat’s situation at the time, but Jonny wouldn't have guessed it’d could also prove important for his own situation.

Because the thing is, Jonny has never had an opportunity like this before, he realizes as he sits down on the bed, his gaze still locked with Patrick’s as he nears one of his hands towards Pat’s ears, caressing them lightly with two of this fingers. 

All of his pent-up feelings, the hidden words, the amount of love he never thought he’d be able to give voice to. That he never thought he’d be able to tell Patrick. All of the things he could now say without Patrick remembering, without them having any sort of repercussion in their future. 

Maybe… Maybe there is something positive to take from this situation as it’s happening. Maybe as Jonny tries to figure out how to get his Patrick back -because no matter what, he desperately want to-, he can take advantage of the issue. 

Jonathan Toews has never been a selfish person, but perhaps this gives him the opportunity to think a little bit more about himself. 

As he keeps stroking Pat’s long ears, Jonny tries to come up with something to say, feeling a little overwhelmed now that he feels that he’s got a world of possibilities in front of him. 

In the end, he goes for the simplest of things. 

“I always think you’re the cutest thing in the world, even when you’re not a rabbit,” Jonny says, making Pat’s eyes widen even more even though Jonny would have said that was impossible only a second ago. 

Pat wiggles around until he can detangle himself from the mess of sheets, moving closer to Jonny once his body is free, resting his front paws on Jonny’s right knee and looking up at him intently. 

“I also think you’re hot, of course, but I’m sure you knew that,” Jonny keeps saying, his tongue loosened both by the alcohol he consumed tonight, and the knowledge that everything he’s saying is inconsequential. “I mean, any person who thinks you’re not is obviously stupid. Super stupid.”

Patrick looks more and more shocked as Jonny speaks. Any other moment, the expression he’s wearing on his bunny face would make Jonny laugh, but Jonny is much too invested in his monologue now to pay attention to anything else.

“So yes, you’re hot, for sure. But you’re also cute. Cute as in I love how stupidly competitive you get over every single thing. And cute because you love your sisters so much, and you aren’t embarrassed to show it.”

Jonny picks Pat up, bringing Pat’s muzzle close to his face and bopping his nose against Pat’s pink one twice, making Pat’s nose twitch adorably. 

“And your bunny eyes look so much like your real eyes. They’re really blue. So blue. Blue but not like the sky, or the ocean. It’s your blue, you know? I love your eyes. I love your eyes the most when they’re looking at me.”

Pat’s small mouth is open wide in surprise, his long bunny teeth peeking through, reminding Jonny of when Pat bit him and making him laugh. 

“You’re so feisty all the time. Like, you never fight on the ice but, if you did, I think you’d have a good chance of winning. Or maybe not, because you really are small, Peeks.”

Jonny’s words aren’t making much sense, proof of his drunk state, and also proof of how many thoughts he’s been accumulating over the years about Patrick. There are so many of them he’s having difficulty knowing which ones he wants to say first. 

“But not small in a bad way. Some guys are assholes about it and I want to punch them in the nuts. Those guys wish they were as good as you. Even if they’re so much taller. You’re the best, Pat, the best hockey player ever.”

Patrick’s mouth is still open in shock, and he’s so motionless in Jonny’s hands that Jonny has to check his pulse to make sure he is alive. Jonny sighs in relief when he feels the steady thumping of Pat’s heart against his index finger, and he throws his upper body down on the bed, his back to the mattress. Jonny extends his arms over his head, with Patrick still in his hands, making Pat’s white and brown body hover above him. 

“Playing hockey with you is the best thing in my life,” Jonny confesses, a little incredulous that this is the first time he’s ever said it out-loud, even though it is the truest of truths. “Actually, you are the best thing in my life.” 

Patrick comes alive again then, the last words Jonny has pronounced seeming to have brought him out of his stupor. He uses one of his paws to point at his nose, like he's in disbelief about Jonny’s statement and silently asking _“Me?”_

Jonny lowers his arms, both because he wants Patrick closer to him, and because they’re getting tired even though Pat weights almost nothing. He places Patrick’s body on the center of his chest, Patrick’s right paw resting just where Jonny’s heart is. 

It’s not just Jonny’s arms that are getting tired, actually. His entire body is. And his brain, too. The room is starting to look less clear around him, and even Patrick’s face seems to be looking back at him from behind a fog. His eyes start dropping and it takes every bit of strength left inside him for him to keep them open and keep Patrick in sight. 

“Yes, you, Peeks,” Jonny answers Pat’s silent question, his words almost indecipherable from how his tongue is also getting very tired. 

Jonny uses the last of his brain power to bop Pat’s nose with his index finger and then take Pat’s left paw to bop his own nose with it. 

“You are my best thing, Patrick.” 

Sleep claims him just as easily and effortlessly as Patrick claimed his heart many years ago. 

_____________________________________

Jonny wakes up all at once, his brain coming alive first and his body quickly following. 

His mouth is parched, his tongue feeling a hundred times heavier than it normally does. Jonny smacks his lips together a few times to bring back feeling to the lower half of his face, and to get the little saliva his mouth is producing to wet them. 

His head is rhythmically pounding, the heaviest feeling focused on his temples, where it seems like a heavy metal drummer is giving it his all for the biggest show of his career. The headache isn’t as bad as Jonny had expected it to be, however, and he’s relieved when he can open his eyes without the light coming in from the curtains hurting his eyes and making the pain worse. 

Slowly, Jonny turns his head left and right to help with the stiffness in his neck, and he startles when he comes face to face with Pat in his bunny form, his muzzle only a few inches away from Jonny’s face. 

Pat is lied down on Jonny’s pillow, his chin resting on his front paws, his ears relaxed, and his eyes focused intensely on Jonny. Jonny has no tangible proof, but he’s somehow sure that Patrick has been in that position for a while, his attention focused on Jonny for a long time.

“Morning, Peeks,” Jonny greets him, his voice gravely and his throat itching from its dryness. 

Jonny coughs way too closely to Pat’s face, making Pat wrinkle his nose in disgust and push Jonny’s face away with one of his paws. Jonny chuckles, coughing again obnoxiously in front of Patrick, his breath hitting Pat’s fur and ruffling it. Pat squeaks, getting up with a jump and hitting Jonny on the head with his paws. 

“Peeks! Peeks!” Jonny laughs, trying futilely to protect himself against Pat’s assault, Pat’s little bunny paws far too quick for Jonny. “God, stop it, you asshole! My head is killing me already.”

Patrick immediately stops, bringing his paws close to his chest, his face set in an expression of deep concern and regret. He extends his right paw very gently to bring it to the top of Jonny’s head, using it to caress Jonny’s hair as Jonny has done to him a million times since he turned into a bunny. 

Jonny smiles sweetly at Pat, turning on his side so he’s not putting so much strain on his neck when looking at him, and burrowing his head further into the pillow. Once Jonny has positioned himself better, Patrick wobbles closer to him, Jonny having to support Pat’s tiny body with his hand so he won’t fall off the pillow. Pat brings his face so close to Jonny’s that Jonny has to cross his eyes a little to keep looking at him. Pat taps Jonny’s nose with his own, once, twice, three times. 

It’s so sweet, so adorable, and so affectionate. 

Jonny’s heart is full of love, ripping at the seams and spilling it everywhere, so much so that if his love was paint, the hotel sheets would be completely dyed multi-colored now, all pinks, and oranges, and yellows, and greens, and blues. All the colors that are so much more intense when Patrick is near. 

A second later, as Jonny is imagining the entire room becoming a canvas to his feelings, a memory from the night before sneaks itself into Jonny’s mind. It’s him, rubbing his nose against Pat’s tiredly,his body against the mattress, his brain full of alcohol and so ready for sleep. 

It’s like the dam has been broken then, and the full memories of the night before come rushing in, drowning Jonny in embarrassment and worry. 

Everything he said, every confession, every stupid sappy comment he voiced when he’s been able to keep them so carefully hidden for years…Jonny doesn't remember every single thing he said perfectly, the booze and the tiredness he was feeling last night blurring some of his recollections, but he remembers enough to know there is no going back now. 

Except, he also remembers the reason why he let all those secrets spill from his lips. And he can’t deny that, perhaps, his drunken self, even in his immense reckless stupidity, didn't have such a bad idea after all. 

Jonny’s chest feels lighter than it has felt in years, the relief of confessing so overwhelming that it makes him feel like he’s lying on a cloud, floating with no worries and no apprehensions. 

Pat in his bunny form doesn’t seem to be disgusted by Jonny, not even after Jonny basically professed his devotion to him in every form. Jonny has always known that Patrick would never throw his love back in his face, would never shun him or shame him for his desires and his affections. 

It’s been pity that Jonny has always feared, the inevitable gentle let down, the sweet and friendly rejection. 

In bunny form, Patrick can do none of those things. He can treat Jonny gently, sure, prep him for the moment in the future when Pat pats him in the cheek and thanks him for the flattery but softly requests he give up any kind of hope. That moment in the future, however, can never come, because Patrick won’t remember a single thing of this when he’s back to his usual self. 

Jonny feels his body tingle with exhilaration, feels his tongue ready to curl around more and more and more professions. 

Pat’s nose is still pressed to Jonny’s, the air he exhales with every breath feeling warm between them. Jonny brings his neck back to separate his face from Pat’s muzzle, settling his gaze on Pat’s clear blue eyes. 

“It’s so sad that this is the closest I’ll ever get to waking up with you,” Jonny says, not allowing himself even a second of hesitation, just letting the words fall from his mouth, letting the confession become even more real in the light of day. 

Pat straightens up, shuffling all of his weight onto his back paws, his ears and his mouth turned down, like he’s feeling sorry for Jonny.

“How pathetic of me, huh?” Jonny laughs ruefully, sitting up on the bed while keeping his eyes on Patrick. “That’s like the best dream I have. Just getting to wake up next to you every day, for the rest of my life.”

Patrick makes a soft sounding noise, and he hops off the pillow to get closer to Jonny again, but Jonny bounces out of bed, clapping his hands together even though his body resents the sudden movement and his head absolutely can’t stand the loud sound.

“Anyway, it’s no time to talk about my sad pining,” Jonny says as cheerfully as he can manage. “I need to shower and then we’ve got a plane to catch.” 

He quickly grabs some clothes from his suitcase and walks towards the bathroom with them in hand, the front of his body facing Pat. 

“Don’t move your adorable tiny body until I get back,” Jonny requests, pointing at Pat before he closes the bathroom door. “Don’t get me in trouble.”

If Jonny was a smarter guy -perhaps if he had decided to go for a career other than hockey, pursued something more intellectual and less, some would say, violent- he would use his quick shower to convince himself to quit while he’s ahead. 

It might feel liberating to finally voice all of his feelings, to know he can speak up without fearing any consequences when Pat, _his_ real Pat, comes back, but the reprieve won’t last forever. Sooner rather than later, when Pat is back to being his regular human self and remembering nothing about his time as a bunny, Jonny will have to lock himself down again. 

It’s been less than 8 hours since Jonny first confessed, less than 8 hours of pure freedom over his feelings for Pat. He’s had less than 8 hours of waxing poetic to Pat _about_ Pat, and in that short period of time, he’s already been able to tell how dangerous it is, how addictive it can become. If Jonny lets this go further, if he pushes and pushes and pushes, nothing assures him that he won't make a mistake, that someone else won’t hear his stupid musings, or that he won't get so comfortable with his feelings that he’ll spill them all over Patrick even when he’s back to normal.

But Jonny isn't smarter. He didn’t pursue a more intellectual path. He is, at his core, just a dumb hockey player. 

So when his shower is over and he’s all ready to leave his hotel room, he picks Pat up with one hand, grabbing his suitcase with the other, and says, “C’mon, Peeksy, the plane waits for no one, not even for someone as adorable as you.”

He can’t stop, and to be quite honest with himself, he doesn't really _want_ to stop, so Jonny throws caution to the wind, gives it his all, and prays he’ll come back alive from it, even though he doubts he will. 

“I live for the moments when you fall asleep on my shoulder on the plane,” Jonny tells Pat once they’re seated in the plane as he strokes Pat’s ears, Pat’s eyes slowly dropping closed as he dozes off on Jonny’s lap. 

(Jonny throws caution to the wind.)

“I’ve had to stop myself from kissing you on the ice so many fucking times before. Your hockey is as gorgeous as you are,” Jonny comments as Pat and him are settling down on the hotel room in Edmonton. 

(Jonny gives it his all.)

“You’re so fucking intelligent, Peeks. A lot more than you give yourself credit for. Sometimes you try to explain things to me and I’m lost, but I don’t care because I just love listening to you talk,” Jonny says to Pat that night on bed before they fall asleep, one of the many points made on a 20 minute rant about all things Patrick Kane. 

(Jonny prays he’ll come back alive from it.) 

“I’ve been so obsessed with you for years. In a way you’ve been my longest relationship, man,” Jonny murmurs as he falls asleep, this time with no alcohol in his system but with the same heavy heart.

(Jonny doubts he will.)

_____________________________________

The days pass like that, with Jonny giving parts of himself away to Patrick, fully ready for them to be thrown back at him in the near future when Pat remembers none of Jonny’s confessions, none of his heart-vomiting spiels. 

The Hawks play two more games without Patrick, winning the one against Calgary and losing the one against the Oilers in overtime. They head back to Chicago with exhaustion in their bodies and their minds. 

Jonny gets back home with a full head and an empty heart. He can’t get a reprieve from missing Patrick, even though Pat has spent the past week attached to Jonny in a way he never has ever before. 

In a weird way, Jonny has everything he has ever wanted, or at least as close to it as he could ever hope to have. He has Patrick, has him with him, close to him, needing him, every second of his every day. He has his feelings for Patrick in the open, and he has Pat himself knowing them, hearing them, living them, sort of. 

And yet, Jonny has nothing of what he truly wants. Because if he could trade every single thing in his life for just one wish, he’d bring back Patrick in a heartbeat. Patrick as he really is, Pat in his human form. 

Patrick, Jonny’s best friend. Jonny misses him in a way that burns him up, makes him want to tear his skin, and walk himself into a volcano to melt away into oblivion. 

Jonny misses talking with Patrick and not _at_ Patrick. He misses looking at him and having to bite his tongue every 19 seconds to not blurt out his feelings. He misses Pat on the ice, misses being on his line but also misses simply looking at him doing what he was born to do, play hockey. He misses Patrick. He just misses Patrick so much he’s afraid it’ll become a tattoo he will never be able to remove. 

The worst part about the feeling is the growing resentment it’s creating within him, the way looking at Pat in his tiny bunny body has become not just painful but angering. He’s no closer to reaching a verdict on why Pat was so suddenly transformed, and he’s as confused as he was the first day about his role in the matter. 

He’s become tired of the games Sharpy and some of the other guys seem to be playing. They still refuse to tell Jonny any of their suspicions about the situation, and Jonny can’t stand being toyed around any longer. He needs answers, but if he can’t get them he at least needs Patrick back. He can live with the uncertainty if it means Pat will be back. 

Jonny tries really hard to keep his frustration away from Pat, mindful of the fact that Patrick is the one most affected by everything. It’s hard, however, and Jonny inevitably starts to slip up. 

By day 11 of Patrick being a rabbit, Jonny cusses Patrick out for making him late for practice. He attempts to soothe the hurt by revealing to Patrick how endearing he finds it that Pat can’t resist a karaoke challenge when he’s drunk, but Patrick stays dejected all through practice, not squeaking once at any of the goals anyone scores. Jonny’s heart aches. 

Two days later Jonny wakes up at 3AM from a nightmare, the aftertaste of it strong on his tongue, his pulse still racing even a minute after he was thrown out of it. Pat is sleeping peacefully, his body curled up on the pillow to the right of Jonny’s head. Jonny heaves when watching him, the smooth rise and fall of his breathing an unsettling contrast to the image of Patrick Jonny still has in his head: an unmoving corpse growing roots in the middle of a frozen forest. 

Sleep is out of the question for the night, Jonny knows, but he can’t stand the thought of staying in bed next to Patrick’s bunny body any longer. He heads towards the living room, curling up on the couch with a fleece blanket his mom bought him. He stares unblinkingly at the blank TV for hours and hours, until the sun rises, light slowly surrounding him and life resuming its pace even when his brain refuses to leave its hellish loop. 

Patrick finds him in that position, obviously confused as to why he woke up alone. And although Jonny gets up to get them through the day, he refuses to answer Pat’s silent question, even when Pat’s pleading eyes hit their peak. Jonny stays mostly mute for the day, no cheesy confessions, no naughty musings, no mindless blabbering. 

Jonny is tired, and it’s got nothing to do with his sleepless night. 

He misses Patrick, and, although he would have never thought he’d ever say something like this, having Pat near only makes the feeling worse. 

He has Pat, and yet he doesn't have him. What a familiar feeling. What a frustrating reality. 

_____________________________________

In the grand scheme of things, one more loss shouldn’t be as monumental as it feels, but it is the Hawks’ defeat against Calgary at home that serves as Jonny’s breaking point. 

Jonny hasn't slept more than a couple of hours in the past three nights, and he’s feared even trying to sleep for a wink here and there, too scared of what he’ll find when he closes his eyes. Each time he’s been able to actually fall asleep torturous nightmares have been waiting for him in his head: hellish images of Patrick in all states of harm, bottomless feelings of loneliness and despair, unmountable regret, pointing fingers, sinking guilt, Patrick dying, Patrick alone, Patrick dead, Patrick crying at Jonny for cursing him with his love, Patrick, Patrick, _Patrick_.

Normally, coming home is the light at the end of the tunnel after a loss, but tonight, his empty house reminds Jonny of everything he’s still missing in his life. Coming home with Patrick held in his hands reminds him that Patrick doesn’t get to go home on his own tonight. Coming home just reminds him of one more failure in his life. 

Jonny swears he can hear each of his cells protesting as he walks towards the living room, shouting profanities at him for the way he’s punishing his body, his mind, and his soul for everything and nothing. 

In turn, Jonny takes it out by screaming at the only unsuspecting victim in his vicinity. 

Jonny and Patrick aren’t strangers to fighting, not by a long shot. They’re more than well versed in the art of yelling at each other, hiding their insecurities in barbed wires meant to pierce the other guy’s armor, and going for the kill with a low-blow every once in a while. They’ve forgiven each other for a lot, during the years, because knowing each other as well as they do means understanding that their fights never tend to be about them, but more about having enough faith in the strength of their friendship to let stem off when they can’t do it in other aspects of their lives. 

Now, however, Jonny knows he’s starting an unfair fight, the unfairest of them all, maybe. 

Not only is Patrick not responsible for Jonny’s frustrations -at least not in a way that he can do anything about-, but he’s in no position to defend himself. Even during the times that they’ve used the other as scapegoats, Patrick and Jonny have always made sure to give the other one a fair chance. It’s not fun fighting with someone who can’t or won’t fight back, Jonny knows that, but he’s past the point of caring about that, right now. 

This is not Jonny’s and Patrick’s usual routine, because normally theirs is a constant give-and-take, both at the same level, both with the same power. Patrick’s power is almost null at this point in time, his power has been taken away by forces that Jonny doesn’t understand. But by starting this fight, Jonny is unfairly stripping the little semblance of control Patrick can still keep away from him. It’s not just unfair, it’s maybe even a little cruel.

And yet, that doesn't keep Jonny from finally blowing up, from catching fire and devouring the whole damn world that surrounds him, including small white and brown bunnies that are helpless in the face of the flames. 

Patrick is just standing on the couch where Jonny deposited him, looking at him with the biggest and sweetest blue eyes, his ears cast downwards in a clear sign of sadness. He chips at Jonny lightly, obviously trying to offer Jonny some kind of reassurance in the only way he can do at the moment. 

It hurts. It hurts so badly. 

“Stop!” Jonny snaps, voice louder than it has ever been inside his own house, like he believes that the more volume he emits, the less he’ll feel the pain.

He shouldn’t be doing this, but he does, and it feels weirdly good to let go of the anger and the frustration through shouting and cursing and yelling.

“I can’t take this anymore! I can’t fucking take it!”

Jonny throws his bag forcefully towards the other couch, knocking some pillows of off it, and startling Pat with the action. Jonny is so far gone that he can’t even spare a midge of an apologetic thought. 

“I’m so fucking tired of this and I don’t even know what I can do to fix it. What the fuck? Why did this have to happen now? I mean, why did it have to happen at all, yes, but also why now, eh? It’s taking hockey from us too, and that’s just fucking unfair.”

Jonny walks in a circle, once, twice, pacing the floor just to give his body something to do, just to do something with the boundless energy accumulating inside him as he fuels his frustration with his words. 

“I don’t get it,” Jonny scoffs, shaking his head as he keeps walking. “What the fuck have you done? Or what have _I_ done? Sharpy won’t tell me, and you don’t seem to know, and I sure as hell don’t so what now? What’s the next step?”

Jonny halts his movements and turns to look straight at Patrick, who is staring back at him, eyes wide in shock. He’s sitting up tall on his back paws, his ears now standing up in attention, his tiny nostrils twitching wildly as he breaths deeply in and out. He looks lost. 

Jonny deflates slightly at the sight, curling his fists up by his sides as he grinds his teeth together and closes his eyes. Anger is still bubbling up inside him, but the warmth of it is less destructive now. The eruption has happened already, so this must be what the aftermath feels like. 

“I just— ” Jonny sighs, hitting his thighs with his fists twice. “I want this to be over. I— I want you back, is that so much to ask for? I just fucking want you back. I miss you and I’m— ”

Jonny feels all of his regret and his hurt building up inside him again, and he grips his hair tightly with his fingers, making his scalp burn when he pulls on it as he bends backwards to look up at the ceiling and shout, “Fucking shit!”

Once upon a time, back when Patrick had just been turned into a rabbit and Jonny was frustrated but still charmed, he’d thought perhaps his being in love with Patrick had cast a curse upon him for some reason Jonny failed to understand but thought likely, with the way his life tends to go. 

Now, over two weeks since that fateful morning when Jonny found a bunny in Pat’s house’s entrance, Jonny finally sees it clear as a day. If he was a little less tired he would realize his rationalization isn’t all that rational, but he’s spent the last three days running on fumes, and he can see it, he can see it. He can finally see it. 

Not only is he to blame, which he is, because he’s in love with Patrick, but this love is what needs to change for things to go back to normal. 

Patrick never asked to be transformed into a bunny, he never would have wanted something as ridiculous or disruptive as that, and Patrick has also never asked for Jonny’s love, another ridiculous and disruptive thing. 

Patrick, through all of this, is just a victim -a victim of Jonny and his unrequited feelings-, and he deserves so much better than what Jonny has put him through. Jonny will renounce to everything, he will even give up Patrick himself -the one thing in his life Jonny knows he can’t live without- if Patrick can come back, if Patrick’s life can go back to normal. 

It’s difficult to put his thoughts into words, to explain how he’s reached the conclusion he has reached and make it understood, but Jonny tries anyway. 

“If this is what being in love with you gets me… I don't want it, okay? I don’t fucking want it,” Jonny claims, letting go of his hair and opening up his arms, as if showing himself off to an invisible audience. “I get it now. I get it. I can’t be in love. I— I’ll take it all back. I’ll make it better. It’s not meant to be this way. And I’ll take it all back if it just brings Patrick back.”

The world doesn’t suddenly burst into a white light, and no booming voice responds from the Heavens to Jonny’s revelation. The living room stays silent around him and Patrick, life going about outside the front door of his house, making him feel more insignificant and unbound that he’s ever felt in his entire life. 

Nothing changes, nothing goes back to normal. Patrick is still a bunny and Jonny is still in love. 

With a kick, Jonny sends one of the pillows that fell to the floor earlier to the opposite corner of the living room. He bites his bottom lip until the pain becomes so sharp it distracts him from the one he feels all over his chest and heart and soul. 

“I—” Jonny has to take a deep breath as he focuses all of his attention on keeping the tears forming in his eyes from falling. “I need to be alone.”

Without a second glance, Jonny walks quickly towards his bedroom, closing the door behind him and leaving Patrick in the living room. It’s not fair, but it’s pretty clear that being fair hasn’t been Jonny’s priority today. 

Jonny throws himself down on his bed with a head full of racing thoughts and with so much despair in his heart that it could anchor down a yacht. 

But surprisingly, for the first time in days, sleep comes easily to him. It happens between one breath and the next. One second Jonny is on the verge of crying, resigning himself to never getting the most important person in his life back, and the next he’s floating aimlessly in the nothingness of the world of Morpheus. 

_____________________________________

Patrick isn’t in the living room when Jonny wakes up the next morning. 

Jonny doesn’t really think much of it, and, honestly, he’s feeling so relaxed and rested that it takes him a couple of minutes to even notice. Even though it had only been a few days since he got a good night of rest, it had felt like years to him. 

It’s not good for any human to go without sleep, but it’s especially difficult when you're a professional athlete and you rely heavily on your body doing exactly as you say every minute of every day. 

Jonny had woken up calmly, still wearing the clothes he had been wearing when he left the United Center the night before, not a single weight that isn’t his to carry on his shoulders. The clock on his nightstand had let him known he had slept for over 10 hours straight, and Jonny had sighed deeply in content as he had made it out of bed to change into some more comfortable clothes than the ones he had miraculously been able to fall asleep in. 

The memory from the night before had seeped into Jonny’s mind as soon as his brain had started fully rebooting, and that had been what prompted Jonny to start searching for Patrick around the house. He needed to apologize, Jonny knew, but for that he needed to know where Patrick was, first. 

Now, ten minutes later, Jonny’s heart is starting to go into overdrive as he begins his second sweep of his house, Patrick still nowhere to be found. Jonny has moved furniture, has called out Patrick’s name about a hundred thousand times, he’s looked behind curtains, and under sofas, and he’s even desperately searched inside toilets. Patrick has not yet appeared. 

Dread is all Jonny can really feel now. Dread and an unmountable amount of guilt that quickly washes away any feeling of peace Jonny had woken up with barely half an hour ago. 

Last night, Jonny had completely forgotten about Patrick in his descend into self-pity and self-hate. Jonny had believed for a fraction of a second that renouncing his love for Patrick and, more importantly, renouncing Patrick himself and walking away to let Patrick live a life without him, would allow Patrick to come back. When that had proven incorrect, Jonny had felt like giving up immediately. 

How could he live knowing he was so useless to Patrick? How could he live knowing he could not save his best friend, the man he’s so desperately in love with, from an eternity of not being himself?

He’d immediately retreated into his bedroom to lick his own wounds and calm his own anger, and he’d left Patrick behind like he didn’t matter. Instead of thinking about Patrick and his needs Jonny had taken the coward’s way out, and now, Patrick’s somehow gotten lost.

Jonny doesn't know what to do. Any number of terrible things might have happened to Patrick and Jonny can’t stomach thinking about any of them. 

His first instinct kicks in, and Jonny finds himself running towards his bedroom to grab his phone. Jonny taps his right foot after he brings his cell to his ear, waiting anxiously as the line beeps before the other person picks up the call. 

As soon as the call connects Jonny starts talking, not giving the person on the other end even a second to speak. 

“I’ve lost Kaner, Sharpy,” Jonny announces, running his free hand over his head a few times in a nervous gesture. “I don’t fucking know how but I’ve lost him.”

“What—? Tazer, you—” Sharpy starts saying, but Jonny interrupts him. 

“I shouldn’t have left him alone last night, but I needed some time to think,” Jonny justifies, walking out of his bedroom and heading towards the living room again, hoping maybe Patrick will just be there if he looks one more time. He isn’t. “And then I fell asleep, and when I woke up he wasn’t there. I’ve looked everywhere and he isn’t here.”

“Patrick is—” Sharpy tries to say, but once again Jonny speaks over him. 

“Patrick is missing, yes,” Jonny says, letting himself flop down onto the couch, biting his knuckles to stifle a sob that wants to break free from his throat. “I’m fucking everything up. I still don’t know why Patrick is a bunny, and I don’t know how to bring him back, and I don’t know how to be a good best friend to him. I don't deserve him, and he deserves so much better than me.”

“Jonny—” Sharpy pronounces in the middle of Jonny’s rambling. 

“And now he’s missing, and I love him, and I would do anything to have him back as a human, but if something happens to him I don’t know what I’ll—”

“Jonathan!” Sharpy shouts, the volume of his voice so loud that Jonny physically startles. “Jonny, calm down, Patrick is okay.”

Jonny immediately tenses up at the unexpected but sure declaration. “What do you—? What?”

“He called me. He’s fine,” Sharpy states, and Jonny can’t comprehend his words even though he understands them perfectly well. “He turned back into a human. He’s our regular, old Peekaboo again.”

“Oh,” Jonny exhales, feeling like an ice dagger has just pierced through his heart. 

The simplest and most obvious explanation was the one Jonny didn't even contemplate at all, and although normally he’d feel embarrassed of such an oversight, he’s been left just feeling bereft and adrift. He understands the words now, completely comprehends them, but they’re as foreign as if they were old Greek, or Latin, or Aramaic. 

Patrick is a human again. Patrick has been turned back into a human. 

Jonny’s silence must last for a suspiciously long time, because Sharpy calls his name twice, his voice turning softer with each word he says. 

“Jonny?” Sharpy asks for a third time. “Are you—?”

“I gotta go, Sharpy,” Jonny blurts out, swallowing harshly, his throat clicking at the action. “Thank you for letting me know.”

Sharpy is in the middle of calling out Jonny’s name when Jonny hangs up on him. 

Jonny turns off the volume of his phone and leaves it face-down on his coffee table before reclining back onto the couch, his neck bent and his eyes fixed on the high ceiling of his living room. 

Sharpy’s words are replaying over and over again in his mind, a constant loop of surprise and pain stabbing Jonny in the gut every time he remembers them. 

Patrick is a human again. Patrick has been turned back into a human. 

Jonny can admit that his fear blinded him to all rational thinking as soon as he realized Patrick was missing. The obvious conclusion to reach -as soon as Jonny checked the house and saw both his front door and back door where closed and Patrick was not in the house- was to realize that Patrick must have turned back into a human and let himself out. But Jonny had been in panic mode at the time, and his brain had been drowning once more in the familiar _find Patrick, see Patrick, protect Patrick_ mindset that Jonny has become so accustomed to in the past couple of weeks.

But mostly, the one reason why Jonny hadn’t even spared a thought to the idea of Patrick transforming back, was that he could have never imagined Patrick would leave without saying anything to him. 

Patrick must have been incredibly confused, obviously, Jonny can’t even begin to imagine just how much. Waking up at Jonny’s house with absolutely no memory of his last two weeks must have been disorienting to say the least. 

Does Patrick even known he’d been turned into a bunny? What kind of sensations must be leftover in him after the experience? Pat’s confusion is warranted and understandable, but the fact that Patrick didn’t even attempt to seek out Jonny for answers isn’t.

It makes no sense, no matter how Jonny looks at it. 

Patrick is a human again. Patrick has been turned back into a human. 

This is what Jonny has been waiting for for weeks now. This should be a moment of celebration, of utter joy and excitement, but the puzzlement is tainting the experience immensely. And surprisingly, so is the small hint of sadness Jonny can detect deep within himself. 

Patrick is a human again, which means Patrick is a bunny no more. Patrick has been turned back into a human, which means Patrick is a bunny no more. 

Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, perhaps it’s even a little crazy to say, but Jonny is going to miss the Patrick that he’s gotten to take care of in the form of a small, fluffy rabbit.

In fact, he already misses him, but it’s nothing compared to how much he’s missed the real Patrick the last two weeks. He channels that feeling to sit up straighter on the couch so he can reach the coffee table by extending his arm. There is only one way he can quiet the confusion that still simmers inside him and also finally mitigate the hurt of not having Patrick for so long. 

When he picks up his phone, there are two missed calls and about a dozen texts from Sharpy, but Jonny ignores them to search for Patrick’s contact, placing a call to it as soon as he finds it. 

The line rings and rings and rings as Jonny waits and waits and waits. For a moment, Jonny fears that Patrick won’t pick up, or that somehow Sharpy was wrong and Pat isn’t even back to being human, but just then the beeping tone cuts off abruptly. 

“Hello?”

Hearing Pat’s voice again is the sweetest shock to Jonny’s system. His lungs can finally breathe in air deeply after weeks of only shallow inhales. Colors are more vibrant around him, the world fully awake after weeks of slumber. Life has finally regained meaning.

Jonny has to clear his throat before speaking, trying hard to sound like he’s not on the verge of a breakdown. 

“Pat, it’s me. It’s Jonny,” he says, clearing his throat one more time when his voice does come out sounding affected. 

“I know,” Patrick informs him. “I do have your contact saved.”

Patrick’s voice sounds so monotone, devoid of any inflection or emotion. It’s unlike how Patrick normally sounds when talking to Jonny, or to anyone that isn’t the press after a shitty game, for that matter. Patrick’s voice always says so much, not just with words but with feelings, and although Jonny has become an expert over the years at reading Patrick like an open book, at the moment it’s almost like they’re two strangers who have never crossed paths before. 

“Right,” Jonny says, chuckling airily to try and break the tension. “Right, I—”

Jonny has so much to say, so many questions he needs answers to, so many answers he can provide for all the questions he’s sure Pat has, but words refuse to leave his lips. 

“You left,” is what Jonny ends up saying, because it is apparently the one thing still stuck to his mind. Patrick left. 

“Yeah,” Patrick confirms, still sounding flat. “I needed things from my house.”

“Right, right,” Jonny repeats, getting up from the couch, hoping that by moving his body his brain will be able to come up with responses quicker. He starts pacing the living room. “It’s just… I was worried.”

“Oh sorry, I should have called, I guess,” Patrick apologizes, but even this one sentence feels distant and unemotional. 

“Peeks… Are you—? I mean, are you okay?” Jonny asks, coming to a stop in front of the window, watching as the trees sway with the gentle breeze of the morning, the image almost hypnotic, helping calm the racing of Jonny’s heart and the unsteadiness of his body. 

“Sure, yeah,” Patrick answers, an Jonny can hear some rustling down the line, like he’s outside and maybe the wind is swaying him too, 

“I just thought… I mean, you must have a ton of questions,” Jonny says, the palm of his free hand making contact with the window, the coldness of the glass tying him to the present. 

“Not really,” Patrick responds, and even though his voice gives nothing away, Jonny can picture him shrugging his shoulders in that carefree manner he’s got. 

“So you just wake up with no memory of the past two weeks and you're just… Completely okay?” Jonny questions, the idea so strange to him it’s almost impossible to accept. He moves his hand away from the window, leaving the imprint of it behind on the glass. “Or did— Did Sharpy explain? Is that it?”

A few seconds pass where all that Jonny can hear through the line is Patrick’s steady breathing and some unplaceable sounds that he’s not sure come from Patrick’s end of the line or the road outside his own house.

The silence is becoming unbearable and Jonny is starting to tremble slightly, but then, Patrick finally speaks again. 

“I remember everything.”

The world stops. All noises fade in the background, or perhaps it’s just Jonny’s inability to hear anything through the ringing in his airs. The air in the room seems to have been completely vacuumed out, leaving the space devoid of oxygen, making Jonny’s lungs feel like they’re burning. 

Jonny is uncannily aware of every cell in his body in a way he’s never been before. 

“Wh—” Jonny can’t get any word out. He’s speechless. He’s astounded. “I thought— You were supposed to— What?”

“I remember everything,” Patrick repeats, like that one simple sentence is explanation enough. 

And perhaps it is, Jonny quickly realizes. 

Memories from the past two weeks begin flooding Jonny’s mind, first in a sedated but steady manner, and then all at once, accelerating their pace and breaking every single barrier in Jonny’s consciousness. 

It’s unbearable -almost traumatic- to remember every single thing he’s said and every single thing he’s done in the past two weeks. He had believed himself immune to repercussions, he had believed himself above any kind of consequence, and so he’d acted like he had nothing to lose. It’s heartbreaking and mind-blowing to realize that that wasn’t the case. 

It all makes sense now, finally. Jonny can understand now why Patrick left without saying anything to him. He also has answers as to why Patrick sounds so stiff and aloof. It’s all Jonny’s fault. Absolutely everything is Jonny’s fault. 

For years, Jonny managed to keep his feelings in check. For years, he maintained his friendship with Patrick pure and untouched by the taint of his greediness. And in the span of two short weeks, he managed to tear down all his carefully constructed life, he destroyed the most precious thing he’s ever owned. 

Patrick has gone back to being silent on the other end of the line, and as Jonny listens to his quiet breathing, he tries to see everything from Pat’s point of view. The sweet confessions and the indecent ones, the heartbreaking complaints and the exposing rambles. Last night’s speech, so unhinged, so truthful, so raw. 

For the first time in all of his friendship with Pat, Jonny had let his heart spill everywhere, painting his life crimson, painting the world bleeding red. He’d been free, free to tell Patrick -or at least a version of him- every single secret he had kept under lock and key for so long. He’d felt unstoppable, untouchable. 

Jonny has been stopped, and he has been touched. 

“Patrick, I—”

Are there words that Jonny can say? Is there a phrase in any language to indicate how Jonny is feeling? Can he find a way to apologize, to redeem himself, to make it up to his best friend?

“I’m sorry,” Jonny ends up saying, fully knowledgable that those two words aren’t at all sufficient. 

Patrick knows. He knows. Patrick knows everything that Jonny never wanted him to know, and he found out in the worst possible way, in the worst possible circumstances. 

Jonny has always known Patrick would never resent Jonny for his feelings, would never judge him for the way his heart latched onto Patrick and never let go. But Jonny has also always known that his friendship with Patrick would never be the same, that it could never rely on the same touches, the same words, the same dynamics. 

Most importantly, Jonny has always known how much Patrick values honesty and truthfulness above all else. In two weeks, Patrick has not only found out that Jonny is in love with him, but also that Jonny spent years hiding it from him. 

“I’m sorry,” Jonny echoes the words again, hoping that Pat at least hears the genuineness of his voice, the regret, and the pain, and the pleading. 

“I know,” Patrick declares before hanging up.

Jonny is left holding his cellphone to his ear as he keeps staring out the window, watching the world resume spinning once more, wondering if there is a way to come back from the mess he created. 

_____________________________________

It astounds Jonny how his life can feel so empty when it’s truly so full. Around him, everything proceeds as normal, almost like the past two weeks didn’t even happen at all, but every single thing he does, every single occurrence, lacks meaning. 

The last few days of Pat’s time as a bunny, Jonny had thought that having Patrick around but not truly having him in the form he wanted was the worst thing that could ever happen to him. Now that he’s seen what Patrick being back but not talking to Jonny is like, he wants to laugh at how his past self could ever be so naive. 

It’s not surprising that the team gets a burst of energy as soon as Pat is back, both in their game and their spirit. Patrick is a central part of the Hawks, indispensable in the locker room, on the ice, and in most of the guys’ lives. 

Jonny has always thought of Pat as the heart of the team, the organ that keeps them alive, the organ that holds all their passion, their drive, the one piece of them that they can’t afford to ever see stopped. In comparison, Jonny believes he himself is the team’s brain, the organ that gives their life purpose, the organ that holds everyone accountable, that pushes them to do their best. 

Together, Jonny and Pat have balanced the Hawks for years, they’ve created a team that wants for nothing, that aims for everything. They’ve pumped the team’s blood and fired their neurons every day without rest, through victories and losses, through injuries -even the rare times when both were injured at the same time- and celebrations. 

Heart and brain. They’ve always been connected, always been in sync. No matter what was going on in their personal lives, no matter how tired of each other or even angry at the other they have been, they’ve always worked in tandem. Heart and brain. Heart _and_ brain.

For the first time in over a decade, the Hawks’ heart is pumping as the brain fires in a completely different rhythm.The heart and the brain are working, but they're no longer working hand in hand. 

And it’s all because Jonny ruined it. It’s all on him. 

He ruined them, he ruined them, _he ruined them._

“Toews!”

Jonny jolts on his seat, swallowing harshly as his thoughts of Patrick and the last two weeks recede, leaving behind only the feeling of despair Jonny can’t seem to get rid of these days. His head instinctively turns towards the person who called his name, finding Sharpy sat on his own stall, his elbows resting on his knees, his eyebrows set in a deep frown. 

Some guys walk between them on the way to the showers, everyone getting changed after a hard-fought overtime win, but Jonny can see Sharpy looking towards Patrick’s stall -empty, Pat probably already in the shower- and then looking back at Jonny again. 

Jonny shakes his head and shrugs, soundlessly asking Sharpy for clarification on his behavior. He tries to appear nonchalant, to give nothing away, but he knows Sharpy can read more on him that Jonny would want him to. 

Sharpy stands from his seat, taking off his jersey with one quick movement and then pointing at Jonny with the hand that is left holding it. 

“You and I are gonna talk after we shower,” Sharpy says, and it’s quite obviously not a request but a demand. Jonny doesn't even contemplate refusing. 

Even if he knows there is no way he’s getting out of the conversation Sharpy is adamant about having, Jonny takes his time in the shower, delaying the inevitable. He lets the almost-scalding water hit his shoulder blades as he rubs shampoo onto his hair, and though he tries not too think about his and Patrick’s situation it’s impossible not to. 

It must be obvious to everyone that something is not quite right between Jonny and Pat, and Jonny has no doubt that Patrick must have talked to Sharpy about it. If there is one person that Pat would turn to about anything -especially if he couldn't go to Jonny about it, especially if it was related to Jonny himself- that would be Sharpy. 

Jonny wonders how Pat found the words to talk about it, if they were angry words, if they were commiserating ones. Jonny wonders if Pat felt better after speaking about it, even if it was to another person, and he wonders if the tremble in his hands will cease before he faces Sharpy. He doubts it will. 

By the time Jonny walks out of the shower, the locker room is empty save for Sharpy and Seabs. They’re both already fully dressed, and Jonny looks down at his pruny fingers, rubbing the pad of his thumbs against the pad of his index fingers, and then his middle finger, and then his ring finger, and lastly his pinky. 

He makes it to his stall without looking up from his hands, and once he reaches it he turns so his back is to Sharpy and Seabs, busying himself with getting dressed. He meticulously dries his body with his towel, and then slowly starts putting on his pre-game suit. He lasts through all of this without looking at the other two men, but the silence in the room is heavily charged. 

He’s running out of things to do to procrastinate when he hears a frustrated sigh and Seabs’ voice saying, “Okay, no, you’re on your own with this. Good luck, man.”

Jonny can’t resist turning his neck then, catching a glimpse of Seabs as he clasps Sharpy’s shoulder, shaking his upper body lightly in what looks like a sign of support, and then watching him as he leaves the locker room with his sports bag on his shoulder. 

“This is what you cause, man,” Sharpy says, making Jonny’s eyes focus on him instinctively. But soon his gaze strays as Jonny realizes where Sharpy decided to sit as he and Seabs waited for Jonny to finish getting ready. The number 88 crowns Sharpy, and Jonny’s heart gives a painful lurch. Through the hollow sound echoing in his ears, Jonny almost misses when Sharpy speaks again. “You and Patty Kane, dude. You’ve made all of us age centuries in the last decade.” 

Jonny stays silent, biting his lip as he swallows harshly, desperately wanting to turn around to escape the all-knowing power of Sharpy’s stare but staying rooted in his spot. He doesn’t want to show how much this conversation is already affecting him even though Sharpy hasn’t said anything substantial yet. 

Sharpy waits for a couple of seconds for Jonny to speak, but he soon gets impatient and sighs, shaking his head in exasperation. 

“Don’t give me the emotionless bullshit, Toews,” Sharpy says as his eyes stay unblinkingly on Jonny. “I want you to tell me what the hell is going on between you and Patrick since the whole rabbit business.”

“Nothing’s going on,” Jonny denies with a mumble, but the quirk of one of Sharpy’s eyebrows lets him know how useless it is to keep pretending like everything is alright. Jonny sighs as the last of his will gives up. “I thought Kaner would have told you about it.”

Sharpy scoffs as nods and makes a dejected gesture with his hands. “Yeah, I would have thought he’d tell me too, but apparently this is the one time he’s being all quiet about something.”

It only takes a second for it to suddenly click for Jonny, and an uncontrollable wave of affection drowns him, even after everything, even though things seem irremediably hopeless. 

Jonny has no doubt that Patrick would have confided in Sharpy if doing so didn’t mean breaking Jonny’s trust, in a way. Pat must have known that Jonny’s love is not for him to share, and Pat -even as hurt and confused and angry as he must be- has kept to himself this part of Jonny that only Jonny himself has any right to unveil. 

It speaks of Patrick’s kindness, and it also speaks of the bond and friendship they’ve shared for years, and the reminder that the latter is a thing that Jonny has most likely lost because of his own stupidity catches him right on the throat, making him cough to get rid of the tightening feeling. 

Sharpy stands up from his seat on Pat’s stall, but Jonny extends an arm in a motion to stop. He turns around to rummage through his bag a little frenetically, finding the water bottle he was searching for and gulping it down in two long swallows. 

“You okay, man?” Sharpy asks him, still standing right in front of him, his body coiled with tension like he’s expecting Jonny to die from another bad coughing fit. 

Jonny is about to open his mouth to reassure him, to say something that will get Sharpy’s shoulders to unbound, but his brain and his mouth surprise him when what he ends up confessing is, “I told Patrick I was in love with him while he was a bunny.”

The blood in Jonny’s veins goes cold as soon as the sentence leaves Jonny’s lips, making it feel like it just started snowing in the middle of the locker room and Jonny was caught without a proper winter jacket. Sharpy, however, looks as if he was standing in the middle of a tropical beach, sun comfortably shining down on him, a pleasant breeze kissing his skin but leaving his perfectly styled hair undisturbed. Jonny’s revelation doesn’t seem to have fazed him at all. 

“Okay, so?” Sharpy asks, prompting Jonny to keep talking with an impatient hand gesture. 

“What do you mean, _`Okay, so?´,_ ”Jonny asks in disbelief, eyes wide and eyebrows risen. “Did you hear that I just said I told Patrick I was in love with him while he was transformed into a fucking rabbit?”

“Yeah, I heard, but dude, I mean, I figured that had happened.” Sharpy shrugs, looking at Jonny with a confused expression set in his face. “With Kaner transforming back and everything.”

With every new thing Sharpy says, Jonny feels more and more like he’s two steps behind in the conversation, desperately trying to catch up but stumbling and hitting the ground every two seconds. 

“Patrick transformed back _after_ I told him,” Jonny reiterates, trying to make sure Sharpy completely understands what he’s saying just so he’ll finally gauge the importance of the situation. “I confessed to him while he was a bunny, when he had no way of responding or doing anything.”

“Yes, I understood that perfectly, Jonathan,” Sharpy pronounces very slowly, like he’s talking to a little kid at a team event. “That’s why Pat is back to being a human. Because you finally told him about your super fucking obvious feelings for him.”

The silence that forms after Sharpy’s statement is deafening, and this time Jonny feels like the floor was directly ripped out from under his feet. 

Jonny blinks, and waits for things to magically make sense. He blinks and waits for some kind of sign, even the vaguest of explanations, perhaps in the form of a white cardboard placed on an easel, like the one that announced Patrick’s transformation what feels like years ago now. 

_Patrick will find his way back to his unerring form when all is right._

“You are—” Jonny starts saying, but he has to pause his words to order his thoughts a bit better. “You are trying to tell me that proclaiming my love for Patrick was what brought him back? That— It was— That it was my confession that, what? Unlocked some kind of spell?”

Sharpy starts laughing joyously as he walks closer to Jonny, the sound echoing across the empty locker room. When he reaches Jonny, he slaps him on the back and then clasps his shoulder. 

“Well, you finally figured it out, huh, Captain?” Sharpy asks him, his tone betraying his amusement. “I didn't think you and Kaner could get anymore stupid but man, you both love to prove me wrong.” 

In normal circumstances Jonny would defend himself -and defend Patrick as well- from the implications, but his brain is too caught up trying to work through the conversation over and over and over again to focus on such superfluous manners as Sharpy making fun of him. 

“You guys are too old for misunderstandings, Tazer, and I can see that all you need right now is for me to say: talk to Pat,” Sharpy advices. 

Sharpy moves away from Jonny after slapping him in the back once again. He bends down to grab his bag where it was laying on the floor and he hooks it over his shoulder with a breathy grunt. 

“I mean it, Jonny. Just talk to Pat, please. I bet things are so much easier than you’re both making them be,” Sharpy says, his voice having turned a little pleading now. “So easy in fact that all it takes is both of you realizing what everyone else has known all along.”

And then he’s gone, the earthy smell of his cologne following him out of the locker room, the sound of his footsteps fading as he moves further away. And then it’s just Jonny standing inside the locker room, his head full of racing thoughts, his heart full of inexplicable hope.

_____________________________________

Jonny should be focusing on the road in front of him, but his mind can’t stop spinning for even just a second. Chicago moves around him as he drives, and his eyes dart from the rearview mirrors back to the windshield time and time again, but it’s all automatic. His body is doing all the motions but his brain isn’t really offering any input. 

_“That’s why Pat is back to being a human. Because you finally told him about your super fucking obvious feelings for him.”_

Sharpy’s words echo in Jonny’s brain and Jonny swears he can hear the horn of a car as if underwater, but for the life of him he can’t reach the surface of the lake. 

Slowly, so slowly, the pieces of the puzzle are starting to finally fit, but Jonny is doing nothing to put them together. They’re moving all on their own, and Jonny feels like a mere spectator watching something miraculous unfold. The picture they form is getting clearer, and the image is so familiar to Jonny, almost like it should have always existed. 

Through it all, a part of Jonny had always believed he had something to do with Patrick’s unexpected transformation, since the very first minute he had laid eyes on the small, fluffy creature Pat had become. It had been a feeling, a hunch of sorts, an inkling that had started in the centre of his chest and traveled through his veins and arteries to envelope his whole self. 

He’d tried ignoring his intuition, tried reasoning that not everything in the world had to be about him. When that hadn't proved useful, he’d started feeling ready to admit it to himself, but in his mind one thing was always clear: if he had anything to do with the situation, his involvement could not be for a positive reason. 

Curse, is what he’d called it at times. Guilt, is what he’d always felt about it. Apologies, is what he’d wanted to offer Patrick for it all. 

Not even once had the idea of his implication being a good thing crossed his mind. Not even once had he allowed himself to think of himself as anything remotely similar to Pat’s freedom, his savior, his remedy. In his mind, he’s always been Pat’s burden, his jailer, his illness.

_“That’s why Pat is back to being a human. Because you finally told him about your super fucking obvious feelings for him.”_

A traffic light turns red and Jonny almost runs it, but he manages to stop right on the line as he remembers all of the years he’s spent thinking of his love for Patrick as a potential weapon of mass destruction. He’s hidden for so long, walked on his tiptoes to not disturb the peace of the universe. And now his entire worldview is rearranging and he can feel the beginnings of a headache forming behind his eyes and between his temples.

He’s imagined himself so many times as a piece of land gradually detaching itself from its main continent, barely holding on, one wrong wind threatening to make him a lonely and drifting island. Perhaps the only person who’s never been able to see he’s always been part of an entire archipelago has been him.

If Jonny is reading this correctly -and all the hints, and signs, and clues are pointing to that being the case-, the universe has been so invested in getting things right between him and Patrick that it took it upon itself to nudge them in the right direction with the most dramatic of performances. 

If Jonny -and Sharpy and apparently every other person that knows them as well- is reading this correctly, the universe couldn’t live one day longer with Jonny not telling the truth about his feelings to Patrick. 

Jonny’s love _was_ the freedom Patrick needed. Jonny’s love _was_ Patrick’s savior. Jonny’s love _was_ the remedy.

And if that was the case, if this whole ordeal was orchestrated by powers beyond his understanding just to get a stupid hockey player -that in theory should be nothing but a bleep in existence- to confess amorously to his best friend, what reason would there be if not for that love to be corresponded?

If something needed to be rectified so badly that fate, destiny, the universe, or whatever other entity that humans have never been able to see but always have been able to feel, had to intervene, wouldn’t it be rational to think that something must have been as powerful as a meant-to-be love?

It’s the stuff of fairytales, Jonny knows, the type of happily ever afters that only children are supposed to aspire to. Jonny stopped being a child long, long ago, and he stopped believing in fairytales around the time he met Patrick Kane and thought of their love as something completely unattainable. 

Maybe it’s time for Jonny reclaim some of his childish wonder, that one that pushed him to become an NHL player, and use it to do something even more extraordinary.

The only thing that still doesn’t make sense in Jonny’s mind, the elusive last piece of the puzzle that seems to be nowhere to be found, is why Patrick ran away as soon as he turned back into a human. Jonny still can’t understand why Patrick has spent the last few days so faraway from him. It makes even less sense with this newfound theory that Jonny is growing so attached to. 

Every second Patrick spent as a bunny, every day that Jonny opened himself up to him more and more, it was supposed to bring them closer together, to maybe show them that their love would only make them better. If that was the case, why isn’t Patrick with his now? Why is Jonny more alone than when all this started?

Jonny only notices the path he had unconsciously decided to take when Patrick’s home peaks in the distance. He’s driven for so many kilometers without paying attention to anything around him, but he isn’t surprised to see he’s still found his way to Patrick’s house without any problem. Jonny would find his way to Patrick through the toughest of hells, if necessary. 

Patrick’s neighborhood is quiet all around, and there’s not single person in the street. The houses are all beautiful in this part of town, but they’re a lot more modest than people would picture Patrick Kane’s house to be. 

Jonny parks his car behind Patrick’s massive SUV -so contrasting against the neutral aspect of Pat’s house- and although he turns off the engine immediately, he makes no move to go outside. 

A minute passes, and then two, and three, but Jonny feels like they’re going by in the blink of an eye, like the world started spinning faster and no one was kind enough to let him know. One of Jonny’s hands is still placed on the steering wheel, while his other hand is stuck to the door handle, his fingers flexing imperceptibly as he gathers all the courage he requires to open it. 

When he finally opens the door and steps out of the car, the cold air embraces him unpleasantly, prompting a shiver to run down his spine and his limbs to almost immediately start going numb. The unhurried almost paralyzed pace that had a grip on him while he was in his car, vanishes instantly as Jonny lightly jogs towards Patrick’s front door, his breath visible every time he exhales and his nerves visible every time he looks down at his hands and sees them shaking. 

Jonny counts his steps all the way to Patrick’s door and he finds himself facing it after just eleven of them. He rubs his hands together four times to bring some feeling back to them. He coughs twice to get rid of the lump in his throat. It takes him two tries to press the doorbell hard enough to ring, and all he can do then is wait, wait, _wait_. 

A fleeting eternity is born and dies in the time it takes Patrick to answer the door. He must not have checked who it was before he opened it, because he can’t mask the stupefaction on his face for a couple of seconds. His blue eyes widen, his mouth drops open, and his cheeks and nose redden, although the last thing might have more to do with the gust of cold air that hits him. 

Patrick is wearing just a short-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of worn-out sweatpants, and Jonny reacts instinctively when he sees. He puts his hands on the center of Pat’s pecs and pushes him backwards, making him stumble a little bit but succeeding in getting him away from the door so Jonny can walk inside and then close it behind him. 

“You’re going to get sick,” Jonny says, no greeting, no opening, no introduction. 

Patrick glares at Jonny from his position a couple of meters away from him and it all comes rushing back to Jonny. Their current situation, the days spent with no communication between them, their last conversation, the weeks Patrick spent hopping around as a chubby, little bunny. 

_Patrick will find his way back to his unerring form when all is right._

“Pat, I—”

Jonny isn’t truly sure of what he was going to say, but he doesn’t even have the opportunity to find our because Patrick interrupts him harshly, his voice devoid of any kind of inflection, tone or emotion. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, crossing his arms in front of his chest. The movement makes it seem like he's protecting himself against Jonny, putting up a shield between them. Jonny’s heart aches. 

Jonny swallows down his pain, trying to forget how much the start of this conversation is already reminding him of the last one they had, when Jonny thought his whole world had completely and irreversibly crumbled. That one had happened on the phone, and this time at least Jonny can look Patrick in the eye and realize that Patrick’s seeming nonchalance and coldness is a less well-constructed front than he had previously thought it was. 

Patrick is biting the inside of his left cheek, and from the tension in his jaw Jonny guesses he must be applying enough force to cause some bleeding. Jonny feels the sudden urge to walk over to him and put his fingers inside Pat’s mouth so he stops hurting himself, and Jonny has to curl his toes inside his shoes and lock his knees to prevent that. 

Jonny coughs before he speaks. “We need to talk.”

It’s the most clichéd sentence in the history of human language, but it’s the one that applies best for them at this moment. They _do_ need to talk. They’ve needed to talk for years now, really. 

Patrick stares at Jonny silently, his face now set in a completely disinterested expression. Jonny stands there, in front of him in his entryway, holding Patrick’s gaze and hoping that just with his eyes he can convince Patrick to give him this one chance. 

Jonny’s eyes must be compelling enough, because Patrick ends up sighing defeatedly and rolling his eyes. His body loses most of the tension it had been carrying as Patrick gestures towards Jonny with his right hand. 

“Take off your jacket and shoes, and just come in,” Patrick says, already turning away from Jonny and walking further into his house. 

As instructed, Jonny takes off his suit jacket and shoes, hanging up the former inside of Patrick’s entrance closet, and aligning the latter next to Patrick’s own black dress shoes. Jonny then follows the path Patrick had previously taken, knowing already it will take him to Pat’s living room. 

There, Pat’s already sitting on his couch, his elbows resting on his knees, his head looking up so his eyes can trace Jonny’s every movement as he walks in and hesitates over whether to sit next to Patrick or in front of him on the armchair. He decides for sitting on the arm chair, both to give Patrick some space, and so he’ll be able to easily maintain eye contact with him. 

“So?” Patrick asks, shrugging his shoulders slightly. “Talk.”

Jonny sends a deadpan glare Patrick’s way. “I’m not here to monologue, I want us both to talk.”

Patrick shrugs again, rearranging his body so his back is now firmly pressed against the couch and his arms are open wide resting against the back of it. Jonny detects the microscopic twitching of his left foot against the hardwood floor. 

“I don’t have anything to say,” Patrick states, and the ridiculousness of the statement makes Jonny scoff. Not once in their entire decade-long friendship has Patrick not had anything to say about something. 

“Really? Nothing?” Jonny challenges, assuming the position Patrick had held previously, his elbows resting on his knees, his upper-body tilted forward. “Is that why you’ve been giving me the silent treatment all week? Because you have nothing to say?”

“Yes, obviously,” Pat answers, ripping his eyes away from Jonny’s, but Jonny doesn’t need Patrick’s gaze on him to know how much of a lie that is. 

“Well, I think there’s a lot you could say, really,” Jonny disagrees, studying Pat’s profile as Patrick continues looking away. 

The slope of his nose, the color on his cheek, the scruffy stubble on his chin, the disarrayed curls. Jonny’s missed looking at all of it, back when Patrick was a bunny and his appearance was nothing like this, and also for the last week, when Patrick was back in human form but looking at him felt forbidden. 

“Maybe what I have to say is just not worth it,” Patrick says, his Adam’s apple prominent against his throat as he swallows. 

Jonny shakes his head even though Patrick will only sense the moment from the corner of his eye.“Anything you say is worth listening to. I’ll take anything you have to tell me over not talking to you at all.”

Finally, Patrick looks back at him, and Jonny is pleased when he spots some fire behind Patrick’s gaze, like Patrick’s spirit is awaking, like his passion is being ignited by the conversation. 

“Don’t tempt me, Jonny. You might end up regretting your words.” It’s obvious Patrick means it as a warning, but Jonny can’t help but feel hope, hope that Patrick will let go of his silence and just _speak_. 

Sharpy had told Jonny he and Patrick needed to talk, and although that is technically what Jonny and Patrick are doing at the moment, it feels more like they’re talking _at_ each other, and not really talking _to_ each other.

Jonny’s always been the type of Captain that is a firm believer in leading by example, in doing what he preaches, so if he wants Patrick to truly open up to him, he’ll need to do some opening up of his own. 

Taking a deep breath, Jonny lowers the last of his inhibitions, sends a quick prayer to whatever higher power transformed Patrick into a bunny, and _speaks_.

“Peeks, the last few weeks without you have been some of the worst weeks of my life. You were there but you weren’t, and I missed you, but I felt guilty for missing you because you were there.” 

It’s difficult to put all of his thoughts into words, almost impossible to convey every emotion that he’s been through. How does one sum up weeks and weeks of confusion, elation, hurt, wonder?How does one summarize years and years of love? Jonny tries. All he can do is try. Try, try, _try_. 

“I didn’t know what was happening, I mean, how could I? You were a fucking rabbit, Pat, a rabbit,” Jonny reiterates, because some part of him is still not over that tiny, crucial detail. “There were moments I thought I was on drugs, like, maybe someone had slipped something long-lasting to me and I was hallucinating. But then rabbit you would do something so _you,_ and I realized not even my brain on drugs could come up with something so perfectly, naturally… Patrick-like.”

“It was weird,” Patrick speaks, interrupting Jonny’s speech. 

Jonny holds his breath. Patrick is biting his lip and his eyes move from Jonny’s own eyes to some faraway point over Jonny’s shoulder. He does this a few times before he finally settles his gaze on Jonny. 

“I was me but I wasn’t,” Patrick explains, shaking his head like he’s also finding it difficult to find the appropriate words to make himself understood. “I knew who I was, I knew who you were, but there were instincts in me that were someone else’s. Or, they were mine but they were very…. I don’t know. Simple. Primal.”

“You were adorable,” Jonny ventures to say, hoping the lightness of his declaration will unclog the air of the tension that he still can feel in it. “A very cute bunny.”

“Well of course I was, I’m always adorable no matter what,” Patrick retorts, quirking his right eyebrow, the right corner of his mouth tilting up subtly.

Jonny feels his lungs fill up with much cleaner oxygen. The air feels brand new. 

“It was fun for a while, seeing you like that.” Jonny resumes his speech, the words flowing effortlessly now. There’s so much he wants to say, and he hopes he gets to say it all. “You had so much energy, and it was hilarious to watch you jump around and be so tiny.”

Patrick scoffs, obviously resenting the last adjective, but he lets Jonny continue talking. 

“I kept trying to figure out how to bring you back but it didn’t feel pressing, I was okay with you being a rabbit for just a little bit longer. But then…”

Patrick moves then, rearranging his body to make himself seem smaller. He brings his feet up onto the couch, and he hugs his knees with his arms, resting his chin on his knees. It reminds Jonny a little bit of when he was a bunny and he used to rest his muzzle on his front paws as he lay. 

It makes Jonny smile. 

But his smile soon vanishes as he continues his narration. 

“I missed you, I didn't know what more I could do, and I needed someone to talk to so I just…Talked to you. I said so many things. Things I never said to you before. Things I never thought I would tell you.”

Jonny laughs ruefully as he remembers how eager he had been when he had thought he could freely speak with no repercussions. 

“I thought you wouldn’t remember anything,” Jonny explains needlessly, knowing Pat will already know this part. 

“I know,” Patrick says, confirming Jonny’s idea. “You thought it’d be like with Seggy. But he did say it was different for everyone, that other guys remembered everything that had happened to them.”

“I might not have been paying the closest attention to what Seguin said,” Jonny admits, running his left hand through his still damp hair. “And I obviously missed some key information.”

“You think?” Patrick teases, making Jonny chuckle and laughing breathily himself. Their laughter dies down and they’re left staring at each other in silence again. 

Silences have always been easier with Patrick, ever since their rookie year. Perhaps it’s because their silences take on infinitely more meanings than other people’s silences do. In this case, Jonny reads relief in it, longing as well, a little hint of amusement, too. But there’s also a little flavor of hesitancy, proof that they’ve still got a bit of way to break down the barrier between them and finally see eye-to-eye. 

Jonny can’t hold back anything anymore, not if he never wants bad silences with Patrick again. Half-truths and tentative confessions might not be the way to go. Neither might long speeches. Direct, honest, and unmistakable, that’s what he needs to be.

“I meant everything I said.”

Direct, honest, and unmistakable. 

“Yeah, and that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Patrick asks, his face twisting into an unpleasant and slightly angry expression again. 

Somehow, even though Jonny thought it wouldn’t be possible, there’s been some kind of misunderstanding along the way. So much for unmistakable. 

Jonny rakes his brain to find the cause of the problem. He tries to recall every single second of the time he spent with Patrick while he was a bunny, and he tries especially hard to recall all the confessions he made. There were a few nights when he had a little too much to drink, but even those memories are well-stored in his mind, just like the last few nights, even though he had felt exhausted every hour of every day by that point. 

One possible reason for Patrick’s anger keeps popping up in Jonny’s head, and as much as he’s never wanted to contemplate it, he’s truly coming up empty about anything else that Pat could be mad about. 

“I never thought you’d have a problem with my feelings,” Jonny mutters hesitantly, looking down at his feet, his toes moving inside his socks in a wave-like pattern. 

Not once has Jonny ever thought that would be something that could happen, Patrick finding out about Jonny’s love and judging him for it. He’s known Pat for years and he knows the kind of person Patrick is: kind, accepting, competitive, perfectionist, _good_. Though he always believed Patrick would never return his feelings, Jonny didn’t doubt Pat would be gentle in his letting down, and that he would never feel disgusted or repulsed by the idea of his best friend being in love with him. 

Jonny still believes in that. His brain, his heart, his soul, they all believe in Patrick. He still believes in Patrick. But there is a bite-sized part of him, located right under his brain, in the most fragile point of his spine, that keeps chanting what if, what if, _what if_.

What if Jonny’s read this incorrectly all these years? What if Patrick could be -and _is_ \- horrified by Jonny loving him in such a deep way?

A thumping noise brings Jonny’s head up from where it was still looking down, and he quickly realizes it was made by Patrick bringing his feet down to the hardwood floor and slapping his thighs with the palm of his hands. 

“Are you stupid, Jonny?” Patrick asks, but it’s quite obviously a rhetorical question. 

Patrick stands up from the couch and Jonny notices how tightly he’s got his fists pressed together. Jonny feels an immediate surge of shame, because he knows exactly what he did that angered Patrick this much.

He doubted him, even if it was just for a tiny millisecond. He doubted Patrick. 

“I have a problem with your feelings when apparently they’re the worst thing that has ever happened to you,” Pat declares, and Jonny feels as if someone had thrown him in a freezing lake buck naked. 

“What?”

His feelings for Patrick? The worst thing to ever happen to him? The concept is so ridiculous, so outlandish, so impossible, that Jonny has problems wrapping his mind around the sentence Patrick just said. 

Jonny’s love for Patrick is as much a part of him as his love for hockey, a deeper and brighter emotion than anything else he’s ever felt. Jonny’s love for Patrick is who he is, plain and simple. There is no Jonathan Toews if Jonathan Toews isn’t in love with Patrick Kane. He’s never needed reciprocity for that, never felt like the hurt that loving someone from a distance could sometimes bring wasn’t worth it. 

His feelings for Patrick aren’t the worst thing to ever happen to him because his feelings for Patrick are the best thing to ever happen to him. Through hockey wins, through injuries, through making a name for themselves, through friends getting traded, through family deaths, through life. His feelings for Patrick have been with him for a decade now and he’s ready for them to accompany him through many more years to come. 

Sure, Jonny hasn’t always been happy about being in love with Patrick, but he’s never regretted it either. How could Patrick think otherwise?

“I spent years thinking you could never feel the same way about me, that I’d have to be okay with just being your best friend. I loved you, I loved you so much and I knew you loved me too even if it wasn’t in the way I wanted you to love me,” Patrick says as he begins pacing around the living room, his steps short and quick, his hands gesticulating along in rhythm with his words. 

It’s taken ten years for Jonny to hear the words he’s hearing now, ten years he spent wholeheartedly believing he would never hear them. He’s dreamt them, for sure, both awake and asleep, pictured Patrick saying them in all kinds of contexts, but they all had in common that Jonny thought them impossible. But he’s hearing them now, for real. 

And yet Jonny can’t fully concentrate on them, can’t rejoice in every syllable, can’t focus on committing them to memory forever. His mind is still stuck on Patrick’s previous words. 

_“I have a problem with your feelings when apparently they’re the worst thing that has ever happened to you.”_

Patrick keeps talking as he keeps pacing, and Jonny wants to tell him to slow down so his brain can process the exorbitant amount of information he’s acquiring. If Jonny was in his right mind, however, he’d want to tell Patrick to never, ever, stop talking. 

“And then, then I’m a fucking bunny and you’re saying all these things that make me think that maybe you do feel the same way and I can’t fucking believe it.” 

Patrick’s voice has risen exponentially with each word he’s said, and now his words fill not just his living room but his entire house. Jonny thinks if he went back out to his car he’d be able to hear Patrick even with his doors closed. 

“I’m so happy. I’m so happy but I’m still a bunny and I don’t understand why, because all I want is to turn back to tell you I love you and that we’ve both been so stupid for so long, and that maybe we could try. If I turned back maybe I could finally make you fall in love with me, I really believed that. But then…” Patrick stumbles over his words, and he has to pause to take a breath, a breath that seems to get stuck somewhere in the middle of his throat, making him choke a little. 

Jonny jumps to his feet, already on his way to Patrick even with the way his knees are buckling, but Pat puts a hand up to stop him, keeping him a few meters away from him. He seems to calm down, breathing in deeply a few times, closing his eyes as he does so. Jonny stays on his feet, his whole body trembling, his heart beating so hard it’s going to escape his chest any minute now.

Patrick’s words… Patrick’s words are marvelous, they’re radiant. They’re the first glide of Jonny’s skates on the ice, and the feel of the puck hitting his stick, and the look of the net as a goal is scored. Patrick’s words are everything. 

The seed of hope Sharpy had planted in him by the end of their conversation in the locker room is quickly blooming, becoming a huge and robust tree, its trunk steady and undeniable. But its leaves aren’t yet appearing, its branches staying depressingly bare. There’s something missing, something Jonny isn’t quite getting. 

Patrick loves him. Patrick loves him. _Patrick loves him._

And yet he ran away. And yet he’s still so far away. And yet he believes Jonny could ever regret loving him. 

“And then,” Patrick murmurs, his voice so much lower now that he’s found it again. He’s not looking at Jonny, but Jonny can see the pain in his face just the same. “I realized that the point of me turning into a bunny wasn’t so I could know we could be together, but so that I knew loving me was your biggest regret.”

“Patrick,” Jonny says, his voice breaking. He takes a step closer to Patrick but Pat takes a step backwards. “That’s not true. It could never be true.” 

This makes Patrick look back up. Jonny can now see his eyes, and it’s striking how full of despair they are, how Jonny can sense some anger floating in Pat’s blue irises too. 

“Don’t bullshit me, Jonny, don’t treat me like a little kid just because now you know how much I remember,” Patrick warns, pointing with his right index finger at Jonny. “You said it yourself. That last night. You finally said that you loved me, finally confirmed it, just to say you wanted to renounce it. That you didn’t want your love for me anymore. And then I turned back. The universe was pretty clear about what I needed to hear.”

And just like that, the elusive last piece of the puzzle appears and fits itself perfectly in the only empty spot that remained. 

The world lights up around Jonny and it feels like every color becomes easier to see and distinguish.But not only that, Jonny can also sense the colors around him in other ways too.The blue of Patrick’s eyes smells just like Patrick, masculine and sweet. The red of his lips is soft, like his fur was back when he was a tiny bunny. The white of his skin tastes like Patrick’s favorite beer, the one he always drinks when the team goes out together. The blond of his curls sounds like Patrick’s singing voice, off-key but melodic to Jonny’s ears all the same. 

Jonny finally understands everything and that gives the world so much more meaning now. 

Before, he was only seeing the puzzle’s picture from up-close, he distinguished the shapes of it, he was focused on its details. Now, he’s got the entirety of its landscape in front of him, and he can put a name to what he was creating and building and arranging for so long. 

Sharpy was right, it seems, and although Jonny will never admit that out-loud to him, he’s happy that was the case. 

Patrick loves him. Jonny loves Patrick. And they’ve both been idiots. 

Jonny’s body has stopped shaking but he still feels a little weak, possibly because of all the elation coursing through his veins. The step forwards he takes this time is tiny, imperceptible almost. He just needs to be closer to Patrick, he needs Pat next to him as soon as possible.

“I never meant any of that, Pat. Not a word of it,” Jonny swears, remembering how hurt he felt that night, how exhausted he was, how much he wanted everything to stop. He takes another minuscule step forward. “I missed you so much, so fucking much. And I was going crazy not knowing what to do. I thought I had cursed you, I thought you had been turned into a rabbit as some kind of punishment to me. I wanted you back.”

Another step forward, this one a little bolder and a little bigger. Patrick is looking at Jonny through his eyelashes and Jonny can’t help but think that he’s never seen anyone more beautiful in his entire life. 

“I would have done anything to get you back. Anything,” Jonny says, and he’s a little afraid himself of how true that statement is. There isn’t a single thing Jonny wouldn't have done. There still isn’t a single thing Jonny wouldn’t do for Patrick. “And back then I thought that maybe me giving you up would bring you back. It’s not that I regretted my love for you, Patrick. I could never, ever do that. I regretted how much my love had hurt you, how it was your downfall. Or so I thought.”

Jonny’s last step, the one that brings him as close to Patrick as he can get, feels like the biggest leap he’s ever had to take. From this distance, there is nothing Jonny can’t see in Patrick’s face. Every single hair of his eyebrows, the little pores on his nose, the cracks on Pat’s chapped lips. Jonny drinks it all in, savors this moment. 

Patrick loves him. Jonny loves Patrick. And they’ve both been idiots. 

But from now on, at least, they’ll be idiots together. Jonny will make sure of that. 

“There’s just one thing from that night that you should take away, Pat,” Jonny says, extending his left hand to grab a hold of Patrick’s right one. He slowly uses his fingers to unclench Patrick’s and one he’s done that to all of them, he intertwines his fingers through Pat’s and squeezes his hand. 

“I love you. I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for years and that’s what you needed to hear,” Jonny declares, feeling for the first time like the words hold the weight they deserve. Patrick is a human, Jonny knows Pat will remember them and they’re both looking each other in the eye. “Because the rest of it? It was bullshit. I was tired, I was miserable, I wanted you back. The only true thing is this: I love you.”

“I—”

Jonny softly interrupts Pat with a squeeze to his right hand, and he grabs Pat’s other hand, connecting them fully now. A closed circle of energy. Jonny’s love flowing through him to Patrick, Patrick’s own love reaching him through Pat’s hands.

“Pat,” Jonny begins saying, knowing this is the most important part of the conversation, the closing argument of this trial. The real bid for Patrick’s heart. “I don’t know why the universe decided we were important enough to need a nudge. Maybe it was just so we could put everyone out of their misery already, because apparently every guy is sick of us, especially Sharpy.”

The joke makes Patrick laugh lightly, and Jonny feels like he’s going to float away any minute now. 

“But I don’t care why everything happened if in the end it brings something good to us,” Jonny states. “So, I guess all I can say is that I love you, and I hope you can forgive me for all the years in which I didn't say it. And that I hope you can also forgive me for making it seem like loving you it’s something I regret when I could never, ever, regret you.”

Jonny finishes his last speech and silence descends upon them once more.

This silence is very different from the previous one, in that it makes Jonny a lot more nervous. It shouldn’t, because this time Patrick is much closer to him, so close in fact that they’re holding hands, but Pat’s face is as inexpressive now as it was before. 

Throughout Jonny’s discourse, Pat’s face had gone softer and softer, and his hands are gripping Jonny’s like a lifeline. But Jonny is tired of misreading Patrick. He did that for years and it didn’t bring them anything positive. So he’s trying not to look to deeply into Patrick’s expression, or into the touch of Patrick’s hands.

Jonny will only trust Patrick’s words for something as important as this. He can only trust Patrick’s words for this. 

But Patrick isn’t speaking and Jonny is growing restless. 

“Say something, Peeksy,” Jonny ends up begging, when almost a minute has passed since he stopped talking. “Please, I need—”

Patrick kisses him. 

Patrick _kisses_ him. 

_Patrick_ kisses _him_. 

Maybe, just maybe, Jonny doesn’t need to only trust the words Pat could say when he has an action as concrete and extraordinary as this one. 

Jonny’s eyes are still open when it happens, but he still doesn’t see it coming. Patrick’s movement is fast, and his lips steal the words out of Jonny’s mouth. They also steal the breath out of him. 

Patrick’s own eyes are closed, Jonny notices through his crossed eyes and blurry vision. Jonny follows his lead and closes his, focusing all of his attention on his lips. Patrick’s mouth is immobile on his, and the kiss is very dry, nothing more than a peck. Jonny’s lips are already tingly and his body feels warm at the contact, but is a greedy, greedy man, and he wants more. He wants it all. 

He starts moving his lips slowly, opening his mouth to catch Patrick’s bottom lip between his. This immediately makes the kiss wetter, and it helps their lips slide against each other. Jonny pulls a his head back a little bit, using his teeth to tug on Patrick’s bottom lip, eliciting a moan out of him. Jonny’s body catches fire. 

The kiss grows hungry and desperate, years of pent up frustration, desire, and affection making themselves known through the noises they make and the urgency of their lips. Jonny uses his tongue to explore the outside and the inside of Patrick’s mouth. He intertwines his tongue with Patrick’s, then runs it through Patrick’s upper palate, then traces the outline of his lips, paying close attention to Pat’s defined cupid bow. 

This is their first kiss and Jonny can feel it from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. And yet there’s something familiar in it, something Jonny almost recognizes. Perhaps, it’s Pat’s movements; perhaps, it’s Pat’s taste; perhaps, it’s just Patrick. Jonny knows Patrick like a book he’s gladly reread and studied for years, and although this is a new aspect of him he’s only now getting to enjoy, it still is just Patrick. Jonny’s Patrick. 

They need to pull away from the kiss when the lack of oxygen becomes unbearable. Jonny doesn’t let Patrick move too far away. He lets go of one of Patrick’s hands just so he can gently cup Patrick’s cheek with his palm, and he rests his forehead on Patrick’s feeling Pat’s warm breaths on his mouth and chin. Patrick’s now free hand grabs onto Jonny’s shirt by his waist. 

“Wow,” Patrick murmurs. He sounds breathless, and Jonny preens. _He_ did that. “We were so stupid for so long. We could have been doing that for years.” 

Jonny chuckles at that, using his thumb to rub Patrick’s damp bottom lip. 

“We have all the time in the world now to do it as much as we want,” Jonny reassures him, moving his thumb away so he can kiss Patrick again. 

Jonny presses the tiniest of pecks to Patrick’s lips, again and again and again. He teases Pat with his tongue, using it to lick the middle of Patrick’s lips, right where they are the fullest. Pat makes a whiny sound that sounds like it comes straight from his throat, and Jonny immediately imagines making Patrick whine for an entire night, keeping him on the edge, giving him almost what wants but not quite. 

“Jonny,” Patrick says, and Jonny lives and dies for that sound. 

As Jonny is about to deepen the kiss, Patrick pulls away from him suddenly, making Jonny open his eyes, his whole body going alert. 

“I love you too,” Patrick blurts out, and Jonny’s body instantly relaxes. His heart, however, goes wild inside his chest. “I almost forgot to say it but it’s true. I love you so fucking much.”

The perplexity of finding Patrick as a bunny, his constant worry over something horrible happening to him, the heartbreaking ache of missing Pat in his human form, the unbearable anxiety of believing he had ruined his friendship with Patrick forever. Everything, every single one of those things was worth it for this moment and this moment alone. 

“I can’t believe I had to be turned into a fucking bunny for us to get our shit together,” Patrick complains, shaking his head, his nose twitching like it does when he’s outraged about something, or when he’s amused but he doesn't want to show it, or when he’s confused. 

Patrick’s nose twitches and it looks just like it did back when he was a bunny. 

Jonny loves him so much he can’t breathe. 

“Well, I guess I should just be glad we finally figured it out,” Patrick says, and then he throws his arms around Jonny’s neck, pulling him forward into another kiss, drowning Jonny in the taste and smell and feel of him. 

Jonny wraps his own arms around Patrick’s waist, bringing their bodies closer together until every part of them is stuck together, from their ankles to their lips.

Now, finally, everything is alright in the universe. 

_____________________________________

(Later, much later, when they’re lying in bed together, naked and satiated, and Jonny is caressing Patrick’s hair in the way he’s dreamt of for so long, Jonny will ask Patrick, “Hey, can we get a bunny?”. Patrick will roll his eyes and hit Jonny on the chest with the back of his hand, and Jonny will take that as a yes.) 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thathockey_) and/or [Tumblr](https://thathockey.tumblr.com/).


End file.
